


Crimes Against

by Rainne



Series: To Live Without the Sun [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Banned Together Bingo 2020, Canon-Typical Violence, Government overreach, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Racism, Kidnapping, Multi, Mutant Politics, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24306526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: The Avengers have things to do; they don't have time for this Superhuman Registration Act nonsense.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis
Series: To Live Without the Sun [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/177689
Comments: 191
Kudos: 355
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, my grateful thanks go to citymusings and secondalto for reading along with me, encouraging me, and also telling me when to rein it in. Thanks also go to Nix for talking me down that one time.

**June 2014**

**New York, NY**

“I’m not abiding by that,” James says flatly, and Darcy nods in agreement. “I took orders from a lot of people in my life, and I’m done taking them. I work on my terms, not anybody else’s.”

“Who wants wine?” Pepper calls from the kitchen, and almost everyone responds in the affirmative. Clint gets up to go help her bring bottles and glasses to the table where the Avengers sit.

“I’m not, either,” Sam says. “And for a lot of the same reasons. I mean… look at this. A committee to decide whether or not to deploy the Avengers in a crisis? Are they kidding? The last time I checked, the whole reason the team was formed was because of an _alien invasion_. Do they think there’s gonna be time for a Joint Commission on the Deployment of the Avengers or some shit when another one happens?”

“It does seem an overly cumbersome mechanism,” Thor muses.

Clint and Pepper return with bottles and glasses, and there’s a moment of quiet while the wine is poured and glasses handed out to everyone who wants one. Then Steve says, “It’s unconscionable. I won’t be a party to this.”

“I…” Tony starts, and then pauses. Everyone turns and looks at him, and his face does something remarkable. “I don’t know,” he says finally. “I mean… part of me can see the point.”

“Tony, are you feeling okay?” Darcy asks. “Because the last time I checked, you were pretty firm about not allowing yourself or the suit to be under the government’s thumb.”

Tony sighs. “I just… after ULTRON, I wonder if…”

“ULTRON was a mistake,” Darcy agrees. “But you didn’t make it alone, remember? We were all in that one together.”

“And that’s my point,” Tony replies. “We’re not infallible. We make mistakes. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe oversight is a good idea.” He pauses, then says, “I mean, _we’re_ obviously fine, for the most part, but _somebody_ ought to be watching over Reed Richards’s shoulder, for one thing.”

There’s a soft chorus of laughter around the table. Clint says, “I gotta admit, Tony, you had me going there for a second. Of all people, I wouldn’t expect you to be willing to go under the authority of some government commission.”

Tony shakes his head. “I’m serious about the oversight – there’s been a lot of talk about us singlehandedly going after HYDRA that maybe has a point – but I’m not going to sit around and beg for permission to handle things when they need to be handled.”

Darcy takes a sip of her wine, then rests her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “When you say talk about us going after HYDRA, what do you mean?”

“Don’t you pay attention to your Twitter feed?” Tony asks.

“If I paid attention to my Twitter feed, my implant would explode,” Darcy replies. “I have way more important things to do with my bandwidth.”

“Install it on your phone, then,” Tony says. “You should be paying attention to this. We all should.” He taps at a smart panel installed in the tabletop and a holographic text feed appears in midair. It begins scrolling and the Avengers all lean forward, reading along as it does.

It’s a list of tweets, some generally addressed and others directly tagging one or more of the Avengers or the official group account. Many of them are positive in nature, and some are downright fannish; others are less so. One tweet reads _Our church is finally finished getting remodeled after the alien attack; I’m so glad we have the Avengers out there to protect us._ Another tweet, on the other hand, reads _I don’t trust those superpowered freaks as far as I could throw them_ _after DC_ _._ And while the balance of the feed tips toward the positive, the more negative comments are not an ignorable percentage.

“I can’t believe people are still talking about what happened at the Triskelion,” Darcy comments. “It was a year ago. Things have happened since then, and I _know_ the American public has the attention span of a coked up cocker spaniel.”

“That’s where this comes in,” Pepper says, tapping the packet of papers that’s lying on the table in front of her. “Someone’s working to stoke anti-super sentiment.”

“Who?” Sam asks.

Pepper makes a face. “The new Secretary of State,” she says. “Thaddeus Ross.”

~*~

**July 2014**

**Washington, DC**

“Ms. Lewis, if you will please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that you will answer all questions asked of you today truthfully and fully to the best of your knowledge?”

“To the extent that I can legally be compelled to do so, yes,” Darcy replies, staring into the eyes of Senator Johnson, who asked the question. She doesn’t smile; she doesn’t need to. She knows how to look intimidating without bothering with that kind of thing.

“Ms. Lewis, this is not some kind of exercise in weaseling – ”

“Who said I was weaseling?” Darcy interrupts. “You asked me a question, and I answered it. Truthfully and fully. I will answer whatever you ask of me that I can legally be compelled to answer. Will I incriminate myself or others? No. Now do you want to ask me any actual questions, or do you want to keep arguing about whether or not I’ll answer whatever hypothetical questions you hypothetically intend to ask at some point today?”

There was a long silence in the hearing room, punctuated only by shuffling papers, the occasional click of a camera shutter, and the sound of someone in the back of the room desperately trying to stifle a giggle. Darcy doesn’t need to look to know it’s Clint; he never can control himself when he’s amused.

After a moment, Senator McCain clears his throat and says, “Ms. Lewis, were you present in April 2014 at the Avengers action in Seattle, Washington when the facilities at Hammer Industries were raided?”

“I was.”

“Which of your compatriots was with you?”

Darcy sighs. It’s not like they don’t already know this; she’s the fourth of the Avengers to testify. “The Avengers known as Captain America, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Thor, the Black Widow, the Winter Soldier, and the Falcon.”

“Was Bruce Banner present?”

“He was not.”

“There were a lot of Avengers there,” Senator Paul interjects. “Are you sure Banner wasn’t one of them?”

Darcy eyeballs him. “The building is still standing,” she replies, her voice dry. “The Hulk was not there.”

There’s another brief silence, and more muffled giggling from the back. That’s Tony, Darcy knows, and she represses the urge to roll her eyes. She focuses on the senators in front of her instead, and goes around and around with several of them about the events of the day. They don’t like that the chair and its accompanying equipment was blown up; they don’t like that she and Natasha went in under assumed names; they don’t like that the rest of the Avengers stormed the building.

Darcy tilts her head at that last one, examining Senator Paul like a particularly nasty specimen under a microscope. “So what I hear you saying, Senator, is that you’re _upset_ that the Avengers found and did away with a secret HYDRA infestation in one of the two major companies that does business with the U.S. military. Am I understanding you correctly?”

Paul splutters, and Heitkamp suppresses a smirk before growing serious. “I hate to belabor this point,” she says, taking over, “but I really feel like this is something we all need to understand. This ULTRON project – tell us about it, please.”

Darcy pauses, and her answer this time is measured and careful. “You can actually get more information about it from Tony Stark than you can from me. What I know is that it was meant to be a specialized search program that would use keywords and informational patterns to search the Internet for signs of HYDRA activity. Since that’s kind of our area of specialization, we would then use those signs to follow up and determine whether or not there was actual HYDRA activity that needed to be dealt with.”

“And just exactly who is it that put you lunatics in charge of doing that?” Ayotte demands.

There is a brief uproar from the back of the room and Darcy sits back in her chair. “I take offense,” she says simply, “and I refuse to respond to any further questions from you.”

Johnson bangs his gavel for order, and Senator Booker leans forward. “Offensive language aside,” he says carefully, “I think the question is worthwhile. From where do the Avengers derive their authority to do what they’re doing?”

Darcy shrugs. “It’s not like anyone else is doing it,” she replies, “and I mean, Captain America does have a HYDRA-fighting directive. We follow his orders, so…” She shrugs again.

“Captain Rogers’s HYDRA-fighting directive ended with World War II,” McCain offers.

“Did it?” Darcy asks reasonably. “I mean, HYDRA still exists, and it is my understanding that he’s never actually received a stand-down order.”

“He _is_ retired from the U.S. Army,” Peters points out. “There was a televised ceremony and everything.”

Darcy inclines her head, acknowledging the point. “Well, I’ll tell you what,” she says. “If you want the Avengers to stop hunting HYDRA and just let it do whatever it wants, then that’s fine. You’re welcome to order us to do so, and we’ll find something else to do. Maybe we’ll start a book club. But I will remind the committee that there used to be a senator called Stern who sat right where Senator Sasse is sitting, and he’s now in prison for HYDRA-related activity. So, you know, it’s up to you, but whoever thinks that HYDRA should be left alone should probably consider how that kind of thing would look to their constituents – or, for that matter, to the FBI.”

There is another long silence after that statement. This one is not punctuated by any giggles.

~*~

“I need more wine,” Darcy says, and waggles her empty glass at James. “Honey bun?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were drunk.” James makes a face at her even as he refills her glass. “Honey bun?”

Darcy grins. “Just fucking with you.”

“Please don’t do that,” Clint says. “It’s disturbing to hear those kinds of words coming from you.”

Darcy laughs. “In deference to your sensibilities, then,” she agrees, tipping her glass at him before taking a drink. “I don’t want to testify in front of Congress any more.”

“Nor do any of the rest of us,” Steve agrees. “Except for Tony; I think he’s jealous that he didn’t get called.”

“As if they would; we all saw the footage of the last time he was in front of a Congressional committee.” James laughs softly. “Something about how he was guaranteed to pleasure himself?”

“Okay but you have to admit that it was actually really funny,” Clint says. “And even more so in retrospect, considering that Stern turned out to be HYDRA.”

“An excellent point,” Steve says, and clinks his own wine glass with Clint’s.

They sit and chat for perhaps another hour before the long day finally gets to Darcy. “I’m done,” she says. “I’m finished. I need sleep.”

“Yeah, me too,” Clint says. “And as the only baseline human in the room, I’m not even embarrassed.”

Steve chuckles, standing up and collecting wine glasses, carrying them into the hotel suite’s kitchenette. James grabs the empty bottle, carrying it to the trash can, and then they separate, Clint and Steve going to their room on one side of the central room while James and Darcy go to their room on the other side.

Once the door is closed, Darcy falls almost immediately into James’s arms. “Today sucked, and I don’t ever want to do it again,” she says.

“That bad?” James asks.

“Just _stupid_ , honestly,” Darcy says. “Well, you know. You were there.”

“I know.” His hands drift down to her waist and then up again, slipping her t-shirt off over her head and dropping it in the floor. She returns the favor, and the conversation is dropped in favor of a different kind of communication, one that they both know ever so well.

~*~

In the morning, Steve gives a press conference. He hasn’t been called to testify – probably because the committee knows what he’d say and what the optics of grilling Captain America live on C-SPAN would be – but he is getting his say, all the same.

“Thank you all for coming,” Steve says when he takes the microphone, reflexively straightening his tie as he does so. “I just have a few prepared statements I’d like to make regarding the testimony my friends have made over the last few days, and about some things I think the general public should be aware of.” He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a set of index cards.

“First of all,” he says, “I want to make something very clear about the Avengers ‘raid’ on Hammer Industries’ Seattle facility. That facility was a HYDRA front, and we have evidence to prove it – evidence which we presented to Congress more than once over the last four days. This evidence includes testimony from HYDRA agents and adjacent personnel who were arrested at the time of the raid as well as photographic evidence. If you don’t believe me, maybe you’ll believe pictures of the HYDRA logos that were literally built into the facility’s walls and floor.”

A reporter raises a hand. “With all due respect, Captain, how do we know those photos aren’t fakes?”

Steve shrugs slightly. “You’ll have to trust me and the testimony of the experts who certified that the photos are real. As well as the testimonies of the FBI agents who were also present and saw the same things we saw.” He flips his card over and reads the next one.

“The next thing I want to talk about is the question of supers – that is, superhumans, metahumans, mutants, the enhanced, and others who fall under that sort of an umbrella term. There’s a lot of talk about us these days – yes, I said _us,_ ” he clarifies at a murmur from the crowd. _“_ I’m an enhanced individual, remember? Just because I was made in a science lab instead of being born a mutant doesn’t make me any less enhanced. And the way some people talk about supers is starting to concern me. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being enhanced or being a mutant or having whatever abilities someone may have that are outside the norm for humans – and that brings me to my next issue.” He flips to the next card in his stack.

“The last thing I want to talk about is the proposed Superhuman Registration Act.” There’s a murmur from the reporters, and Steve gives a grim smile. “The government wants a registry of everyone who may be enhanced, superhuman, metahuman, mutant, or otherwise _different from the norm._ I ask you this, ladies and gentlemen: Who defines _different from the norm_? Who gets to say _this person goes on a list but that person doesn’t_? And once the list is made, who keeps the list? What’s done with the information that’s on the list?

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Steve says, wrapping up, “I think we’re all well aware of the kinds of consequences that can occur when a government – _any_ government – decides it’s time to register and track any members of its society based on any one particular characteristic. And none of those consequences are good. I will leave you all to consider the ramifications yourselves; I won’t be taking any questions at this time. Thank you all for your kind attention.” And with that, Steve steps away from the podium.

~*~

On Tony’s jet heading back to New York, Steve looks down into his wineglass and sighs. “Some days, I really wish alcohol still affected me.”

Clint pats his shoulder soothingly and steals the glass.

~*~

**July 2014**

**New York, NY**

They spend the next few days anxiously watching news feeds, simultaneously cringing any time their own faces come up and glued to the responses. Tony has JARVIS curate a running Twitter feed that stays up on a screen in the common room for anyone who wants to spend time gauging (or engaging with) the general public and their opinions.

Steve has to force himself not to look at it; Darcy doesn’t have that problem. She resolves to ignore the whole thing until and unless she’s forced to deal with it. Instead, she throws herself into her twin functions: Dark Mistress of the Science Labs and part-time HYDRA hunter.

It’s in the second capacity that she starts hearing whispers about “the twins.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Banned Together Bingo 2020 square "contains wine".


	2. Chapter 2

**August 2014**

**New York, NY**

Intel indicates that the twins are supers, and though they’re referred to as volunteers, Darcy’s pretty sure that’s sarcasm. She can’t get a handle on what _kind_ of supers they are or what kind of powers they might have; she’s also having a hell of a time finding out _where_ they are. She’s got ears to the ground in a number of places – not nearly as many as Natasha has, though – but she and Nat are both coming up dry on the location. Nobody seems to be in the right place.

When word comes, it comes from the unlikeliest of sources: Nick Fury himself. Fury has been in Europe since the fall of SHIELD, hunting down HYDRA himself, and it seems that one of _his_ contacts finally managed to get into the right company.

“I don’t know anything more specific than Symkaria,” he says over the video chat line. “That’s the best I could do.”

“Hey, it’s better than any of us have managed,” Darcy tells him. “Every little bit helps. I mean, Jesus, Nat and I couldn’t even get that much, and we’ve been looking for weeks.”

“If they’re in Symkaria, what are the chances Doom is involved?” Steve wants to know.

“Slim to none,” Fury replies. “Symkaria’s in the middle of falling apart right now. If Doom is going to do anything, he’s going to wait a little longer and then just roll his bots right through the place to the opposite border and fold it all into Latveria.”

“And boy won’t _that_ make for an exciting day of international politics,” Tony comments.

“Maybe it’ll take their minds off us for awhile,” Clint says sourly. The Superhuman Registration Act is still in Congress, though it’s stalled, and it keeps getting revisited in the press – enough that Clint is getting very nervous about the idea of his soulmate being on a registry list somewhere. He’s started to wax snarky on more occasions than usual.

Steve pats Clint on the shoulder while Darcy says, “If Symkaria is in chaos, that can only be good for HYDRA; they could operate practically out in the open. We need to put somebody on the ground out there to hunt these bastards down.”

“Don’t look at me,” Fury says, and hangs up.

“I’ll need one of your digital facial meshes, Tony,” Natasha says, tapping the pane of smart glass on the tabletop and starting a list. “Something bland and unassuming but attractive all the same.”

“My specialty,” Tony replies, smirking a little bit. “Are you going alone?”

“It’s best if I do,” Nat says, nodding. “One person asking questions can be chalked up to a potential recruit; two smacks of intel gathering.”

“One person asking the wrong questions can get disappeared pretty quickly, too,” Sam offers from the other side of the room.

“I haven’t been disappeared yet,” Natasha replies, grinning at him. “I’m _very_ good at what I do.”

“It’s true,” Darcy agrees. “She’s the best spy the Red Room ever graduated.”

“It just makes me nervous,” Sam says.

Natasha inclines her head. “Your objection is noted.” She pauses. “If it helps, I’ve also got a panic button and a tracker.”

It does not help, everyone can tell, but Sam says nothing more. His objection, as Natasha said, has been noted, and he knows it will be taken into account along with all the other considerations to be made for this mission.

She goes three days later, wearing a blandly attractive but ultimately forgettable face and a brunette wig.

She’s gone for a week with minimal radio contact; on the ninth day, though, she sends a message directly to Darcy. _Found them,_ she says, and sends a set of coordinates.

The team assembles.

~*~

**August 2014**

**Aniana, Symkaria**

Natasha has a hotel room in the heart of Symkaria’s capital city, and they crowd into it to get her briefing. “They’re right here in the city,” she tells them, a little disbelieving. “I mean, _right here_. That hospital you passed on the way here from the airport?”

“The closed up one?” Darcy asks.

Natasha nods. “It was a functioning state-run hospital until the collapse; now it’s vacant. Except for the fact that it’s not; it’s got some tenants that nobody really wants.”

“We definitely don’t need the Hulk in there, then,” Bruce says.

“Not at first, anyway,” Steve agrees. “But I’d rather have you and not need you than need you and not have you.”

Bruce inclines his head, acknowledging the point.

“So what do we know about the inside?” James wants to know.

“Nothing,” Natasha says, mouth twisting a little bit. “I couldn’t get inside.”

“Too much security?” Tony asks.

“Too good,” Natasha admits. “I’m good, but even I can’t get around palmprint and retinal scanners, not without help.”

“No chance of sliding in unnoticed and sneaking up on them, then,” James says.

“Not that I could find,” Natasha agrees.

“Chances that there are any unwired windows?” Darcy asks.

Natasha pauses, looking thoughtful. “Don’t know,” she admits. “I didn’t have any way to check without actually trying a window.”

“Okay, that’s something worth checking out,” Steve says. “Tony, do you think you can take care of that?”

“Not a problem,” Tony replies. “Let me find a way up onto an adjacent building and I’ll find out.”

Natasha moves to the bathroom and comes back with the digital face mesh in her hands. “No time like the present,” she says.

Laughing, Tony shakes his head. “I don’t think I could pull her off as well as you do. It’s dark out and it’s a bad area of town; nobody’ll pay any attention to me right now.”

Darcy grabs her duffel bag and starts rummaging through it. “Give me a minute to kit out; I’m going with you.”

“I’ll be fine – ” Tony begins, but everyone in the room shakes their heads at him. He sighs. “Fine.”

“We can’t afford to lose you right now,” Steve says. “We’ve got a mission.”

“Wait – _right now_?” Tony repeats. “What do you mean _right now_?”

Shaking her head, Darcy steps into the bathroom to change into her tac gear. When she comes out, an actual argument has broken out about whether or not Steve meant to imply that there would be a time when it was okay to lose Tony. She puts her fingers to her lips and blows a sharp whistle. “Fight later,” she says when they turn to face her. She grabs her weapons out of her bag, tucking them away swiftly, and then says, “Tony, let’s go.”

Still grumbling, Tony follows her out.

They make their way back up the street toward the hospital building, Tony on the sidewalk while Darcy keeps to the shadows, staying close abreast of him and watching carefully to make sure he isn’t accosted or mugged – because that would just be embarrassing. Fortunately they make it to their destination without incident, and they make their way up the fire escape of a nearby building.

“First floor is definitely wired,” Tony reports from about halfway up the second flight of steps. “Second floor is a maybe.” A minute later, he laughs softly. “Jackpot.”

“Unwired?” Darcy asks.

“Third floor windows are not wired,” Tony confirms. “They must have thought nobody would bother to go up that high.”

“Shows what they know,” Darcy scoffs. “That’s just lazy.”

“All right, shall we head back?”

“In a second. I want to do some roof recon and find the best way in.” She taps him on the crown of his head. “Stay here.”

“What if I – ”

“ _Stay here,_ ” she repeats. “You don’t have your suit; that makes you squishy. Stay here and I’ll be right back. Ten minutes, tops.”

He grumbles at her, but he stays put. Darcy heads back to ground level and makes her way around the back of the hospital, studying the visible security features and looking for guards. There are only a couple around the back, and their patrol rotation takes them past each other and then around the sides of the building.

As soon as they are both out of sight, Darcy scrambles out of the shadows and starts up the side of the building, careful to avoid the wired windows. At the third floor she peers through the glass, but it’s too dark to see anything, so she keeps going. She makes it to the roof and rolls over the edge onto the flat surface, then gets to her feet, brushing gravel off herself before realizing she’s exposed to the world. There’s nothing to hide her. She opens a comm link to Tony’s phone and sends him a text. _Can you see me up here?_

 _Big as life,_ he replies immediately. _Might want to get down._

She drops to a crouch, then gets on her hands and knees to scrabble across the roof. She looks over the edge occasionally, tracking the progress of the security guards as well as the locations of the windows. Once she’s marked them, she waits for the guards to rotate around the building again before clambering down and hustling back to Tony.

“Nine minutes, forty-five seconds,” he says when she arrives at his side. “Not bad.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “C’mon,” she says. “Let’s head back and tell them all the good news.”

~*~

“Are we going in tonight?” Darcy asks when they get back and report in.

“No time like the present,” Steve says, grabbing his duffel bag. “Everybody gear up.”

~*~

It takes several minutes for everyone to make it to the top of the hospital; Sam gets there first with his wing pack, but the others have to come up the regular way, and Tony has to wait far enough away that the sound of his repulsors doesn’t warn everyone in the building that he’s there. Bruce, in case he is needed, waits with Tony; Thor waits with them as well, since his entrances tend to be loud and noticeable.

Sam, who can hover, does the work of cutting the glass out of the window, handing it up piece by piece to Clint, who sets it aside on the rooftop where nobody will step on it and accidentally shatter it (and alert someone to their presence with the sound). Once the window is open, he starts bringing people down one at a time, getting them through the opening and into the building.

Darcy switches on her night vision setting and starts out of the room, weapon at the ready. With James at her back, she turns to start down the hallway – only to let out a yelp and nearly wet her pants at the sight of a huge, grotesque face looming out of the darkness on her left side. She slams into the right hand wall, her hands swinging up on instinct, taking aim at that huge, horrible face, and it’s only James’s quick reflexes that stop her from ruining the entire operation with a single gunshot to the forehead of the massive clown appliqué that’s hanging partly off the wall. “Stop, кукла,” he says, snatching the gun out of her hand. “It’s just a picture.”

Darcy’s hand actually goes to her chest. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she breathes, staring at the horrible thing. “Who puts something like that in a hospital?”

“It’s the children’s ward,” Clint says, coming out of the room behind them now that the danger has passed. “It’s got all kinds of stuff like that.”

“It’s awful,” Darcy says. Then, irrationally angry, she crosses the hallway and snatches it down, throwing it onto the floor. “Fucking thing.”

“Okay,” Steve says, coming out of the room with the rest of the team. “Are we gonna do this, or are we gonna stand around all day?”

Darcy takes her gun back from James. “Let’s do this,” she says grimly.

~*~

The third and second floors are totally empty. There are no other unfortunate encounters, with clowns or anything else, and by the time they’re ready to descend to the first floor, Darcy has stopped feeling like she’s going to climb out of her own skin.

“All right,” Steve says as they huddle together in the center of the second floor, near the main staircase. “We’re splitting in two here. James, Darcy, Clint, you all go down the east staircase. Sam, Natasha, and I will go down the west. Signal when you’re ready at the bottom and we’ll come out together and meet in the middle.”

“Sounds good to me,” Darcy says. “Thor, Tony, Bruce, are you guys ready to come pounding in?”

“ _On your mark,_ ” Thor replies across the comms.

“This is gonna get noisy,” Clint says, grinning. “Everybody ready?”

“Ready,” they chorus, and they split up to make their way down their assigned stairwells.

~*~

There are less people than Darcy expected on the first floor, and none of them are important; they’re all security forces, and they can be easily dispatched without a loss of valuable intel. The only thing they need from these assholes is the location of the twins – and that turns out to be the basement morgue.

Because of course it is.

“Of course,” Natasha says, rolling her eyes. “Of course it is.”

“All right,” Steve says. “They know we’re here at this point, so Tony and Thor and Bruce, you might as well join us.”

In fact, they have Tony take point down the narrow stairs to the basement; Steve comes right behind him with his shield up to protect everyone behind them, and the only reason they make it downstairs without a lot of fighting is specifically because the stairwell is so narrow; it only permits two people to walk abreast if they’re _not_ carrying assault rifles, and these guys are all carrying assault rifles, so Tony’s able to simply shoot them down with his repulsors as they make their way down the stairs.

It takes a few minutes and about twenty guards, but they make it to the bottom, and the hallway here is wide enough for them to range out in a larger group.

“Did we get all the guards?” Clint wonders, looking down the empty corridor.

“Must have,” Tony says.

“They were simple opponents,” Thor says. “I could have taken them all by myself.”

Darcy laughs. “You definitely could have, buddy,” she tells him, clapping him on the shoulder.

“All right, where are we going?” James asks.

“Only one direction we _can_ go in,” Steve replies, gesturing down the hall. “So let’s go.”

They make their way up the hall, pausing at each door to clear the rooms; they find dead HYDRA in two of the offices, froth at the mouths indicating that they bit down on their cyanide pills when they realized that capture was not only imminent but unavoidable. Natasha shakes her head in disgust. “What a waste of intel.”

Darcy makes a sound of agreement in the back of her throat.

A couple of the offices are full of computer equipment, which they’ll have to come back to, but the morgue itself is at the end of the hall behind a set of swinging double doors, and that’s where the twins are – that’s where the Avengers have to go.

“No telling what’s behind that door,” Darcy murmurs as they get closer to it.

“Could be anything,” James agrees.

“Tony, take point,” Steve says.

Tony does, and then for good measure he blows a hole in the double doors, then uses his repulsors to hover just off the floor and glide through the hole. The others follow, and what they find is something they never could have expected.

The twins are in their late teens or early twenties, and they definitely don’t look like volunteers. The girl – or perhaps young woman – is strapped to a table with an IV in her arm, clearly drugged to the gills, and her brother is manacled to a chair. Thankfully, it’s not one of the mind-wiping chairs, but that doesn’t matter; what matters is the scientist who’s standing behind the chair with a gun to the boy’s head. “You’re gonna let me go,” she says simply.

“You think so?” Tony asks. “Do you think that’s how this is going to go?”

“If you want him alive it is,” the woman replies simply. “I’ll kill him if you don’t let me go.”

“All right,” Steve says carefully. “Everybody just put your weapons down and we’ll talk about this.”

“Fuck that,” Darcy replies and shoots the scientist’s knee out. The woman goes down with a horrible scream, her gun going flying, and Darcy holsters her Glock with a smug air. Off Steve’s expression, she says, “Fuck negotiating or whatever you were gonna do, Steve, this was always how this was gonna go. What were we gonna do, stand here and let her uncuff the kid and make a grand spectacle of the whole thing?” She shakes her head. “If you want her alive, you might want to get a tourniquet on her leg.”

“Hey Bruce,” Tony says into the comms, “we need some bio-science down here.”

“Be honest,” Clint says to Darcy, “you only did that because you were mad about not getting to shoot that clown upstairs.”

“Fuck you, Barton,” Darcy replies easily.

“Because you totally screamed when you saw that thing,” he continues. “Like a tiny child.”

She moves toward the chair to uncuff the kid. “I will kill you in your sleep, and Steve will not be able to save you.”

“Like a tiny child!”

Once he’s uncuffed, the kid is at his sister’s side so fast that Darcy doesn’t even see him move – and that’s not an exaggeration. She literally does not see him move. One moment he’s in the chair and she’s uncuffing his leg; the next instant he’s at his sister’s side, watching with huge eyes as Bruce examines her and checks the contents of the IV bag.

“Do you speak English?” Bruce asks the kid, and the kid nods. Bruce nods back. “This is a very basic sedative,” he says. “It’s not hurting her, just keeping her drugged down. Do you know why they did this?”

“My sister,” the young man says, his voice thick with Eastern Europe, “she can… do things. With her mind.” He pauses, looking around at them. “You are the Avengers, yes? The good guys?”

“Yes,” Steve says firmly, bodily handling the injured scientist into the chair and cuffing her down. “We’re here to help you.”

The young man nods. “I’m Pietro,” he says after a moment. “She’s Wanda.” He looks over at Bruce again. “Can you wake her up? Please?”

Bruce nods, and a moment later the IV is out of the girl’s arm. “It’ll take some time for that to process out of her bloodstream,” he explains. “She’s going to be out for several hours, depending on how long she’s been under. But she should be just fine once she wakes up.”

Pietro nods, taking Wanda’s hand and holding it gently.

Sam approaches the table. “I’m Sam,” he says, offering his hand to Pietro to shake. “Can you tell us how you ended up here?”

“They took us from our home,” Pietro says simply. “They killed our parents and they took us by force. They… they _thanked_ us for _volunteering._ We didn’t! They took us from our home!”

“Sounds familiar,” Darcy mutters to James.

“How old are you, Pietro?” Sam asks softly.

“That depends,” Pietro replies. “What year is it?”

They work out that the twins are in fact just eighteen, and have been HYDRA captives for almost two years. They’re mutants, the children of mutants, and their abilities woke at puberty as normal. They tried to keep quiet about what they could do, but Pietro (“I move very fast”) was not always able to control his speed and Wanda’s mental abilities quickly got the better of her. Their parents pulled them out of school to keep them safe, but HYDRA found out about them and came for them anyway.

“They have a way of doing that,” Darcy says grimly. At Pietro’s questioning look she says, “Someday I’ll tell you my origin story. For now, just know that you’re not alone; I know just how you feel.”

Pietro nods, his attention turning back to his sister.

“So what are we going to do with this one?” James asks, gesturing to the scientist.

“We’re going to take her to the hospital – a working hospital, that is,” Steve says. “And we’re going to ask her to tell us everything we want to know, and then we’re going to turn her over to INTERPOL. They’re interested in HYDRA as much as we are.”

Darcy walks over to the woman and pulls a gun out, pressing it to the back of the woman’s right hand. “Hey,” she says. “You know how I just blew out your knee? How would you like to lose the rest of your limbs one by one?”

“Please, I’ll tell you everything,” the woman cringes.

Steve sighs.

The woman babbles everything she knows about the operation, in which HYDRA scientists intend to capture as many mutants as possible in order to study the X-gene and try to learn how to unlock it in baseline humans. She also knows some very helpful information about locations and subjects, all of which she spills without a moment’s hesitation. Once she’s run out of things to tell them, James calls for an ambulance.

Tony, who has stepped out of his suit for the moment, nudges Darcy with his elbow. “That clown thing really got to you, didn’t it?” he asks. “What’s your deal with clowns?”

“I hate clowns.”

“Why?” Clint wants to know. “Clowns are kind of cool.”

“I had a bad experience,” Darcy replies.

“What happened?” Sam asks.

Darcy glowers. “I had. A bad. _Experience._ ”

Sam lets it go. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Banned Together Bingo 2020 prompt "scary clowns".


	3. Chapter 3

**August 2014**

**New York, NY**

Wanda wakes up enough that she can get onto the plane on her own feet, albeit with Pietro’s help; she gets that they’re among friends and so kindly doesn’t use her powers – whatever they are – on them. Instead, she lets Tony guide her and Pietro to the jet’s tiny bedroom, where they crash together for a long sleep on the way home.

When they arrive back in New York, there’s a lot of housekeeping to be done. Wanda and Pietro need a room (not that there’s any shortage; they get a three-bedroom suite on the floor below Sam), they need identification and legal paperwork (JARVIS is on it), and they need to be debriefed. Steve puts his foot down about that; it can wait, he says, until they’re both well rested and Wanda’s completely free of whatever drugs were in her system.

The time comes, though, and a day after the rescue, the Avengers find themselves sitting around the common room table with Wanda and Pietro, who are ready to talk.

“We are mutants,” Wanda explains, squeezing Pietro’s hand under the table as she admits something she’s never said out loud before. “Our parents were, too. When our abilities manifested, they took us out of school to keep us safe. I don’t know how HYDRA found out about us, but they did.”

“They tried to kidnap us off the street once but we got away,” Pietro interjects. “But then they came after us in our home. They came just at dinnertime; we were sitting down to eat when they kicked the door in. They killed our parents and took us.”

“The man – the doctor,” Wanda says. “He thanked us for volunteering. I still have no idea what he meant.”

Darcy makes a rude noise. “Smart-assed bastards.” She shakes her head. “They called us volunteers, too,” she tells Wanda. “They took me from my parents in much the same way as they took you from yours.”

Pietro shudders. “I can still see – ”

“Try not to,” Natasha says, gently but firmly.

Pietro nods. Wanda takes a deep breath. “They locked us in cages,” she says after a moment. “Pietro – he moves very quickly. But he couldn’t in the cage. And me… once they realized they couldn’t stop me from trying to use my powers, they threatened him.” She swallows hard. “They said if I didn’t cooperate, they’d hurt him. So I…” Her voice drops to a near whisper. “I cooperated.”

“You did what you had to do,” James murmurs with a speaking glance at Darcy. “Don’t blame yourself.” He pauses, then says, “Were you ever, that you know of, put into the chair? With the electricity?”

Wanda and Pietro both shake their heads. “No, there was nothing like that,”

Pietro says. “Why?”

“That’s how they made _us_ cooperate,” Darcy explains. “It wipes your memories. We were afraid they might have done something similar to you.”

Wanda’s lips twist. “They didn’t have to,” she admits. “They told us if one of us misbehaved, they’d hurt the other one.”

“Yeah, they like to pull that kind of crap,” James says, nodding. “So you cooperated. What did they make you do?”

“It was mostly testing,” Pietro says. “They took blood, made us use our powers. Well, mostly Wanda. They wanted to know how it worked. They wanted to make her work for them.” His expression turns wry. “My ability wasn’t as useful as hers; I think they mostly kept me alive for… what’s the word? As the thing that makes her behave.”

“Leverage,” Tony says, looking ill. “They used you as leverage to make her do what they wanted.”

“Yes.” Pietro nods.

“Do you know what they were testing you for?” Thor asks, his tone soft.

Both twins shake their heads. “Just that they wanted to know how I worked,” Wanda says. “But nothing more specific than that.”

“What exactly can you do?” Clint asks. Off the others’ expressions, he says, “What? I think it’s a fair question.”

Wanda nods. “I can tell you,” she says. “They called me a witch. I can do things with my mind. I can – well. They said something about manipulating energy fields. I can move things and knock things over; I can make a force field; I can fly. I can also play with people’s minds, make them see things that aren’t true.”

Clint points a finger at her. “None of that here.”

“I promise,” she agrees, nodding vigorously. “I don’t like to do it anyway. It makes me feel dirty.”

“We won’t ask you to,” Steve says. “Nobody here is going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“We brought their computers back with us,” James tells the twins, changing the subject. “So we’ll see if we can figure out what they learned from you.”

“Just… make sure no one can use it?” Wanda asks.

Bruce nods firmly. “That’s a promise,” he says. “In the meantime, we want you two to relax. Sleep all you want, eat when you’re hungry, and so on. You’re going to need time to recover from what you’ve been through.”

“And if you need anything, just ask JARVIS,” Tony puts in.

Pietro looks around the table. “Who is JARVIS?”

“I am JARVIS,” JARVIS says, and both twins jump.

“Sorry,” Steve says. “JARVIS is the Tower’s voice address system. He’s an artificial intelligence. Anything you need, he can help you with.”

“One thing they’re going to need for sure is _things,_ ” Darcy comments. “Like, clothes and things.” The twins look down at their clothing – borrowed sweats – and make identical grimaces, and Darcy chuckles. “JARVIS, can you please put in an order for some clothes for them? Jeans, t-shirts, casual wear. That kind of thing.”

“Of course, Ms. Lewis,” JARVIS replies. “I’ll have them delivered by midafternoon.”

“Thanks, JARVIS,” Darcy says. Then she grins at the twins. “And that’s how JARVIS works. He can get you movies on the television, music to listen to, books to read, anything you need or want.”

“Thank you,” Wanda says softly, looking a little dazed. “We – I – we can’t repay you – ”

“We don’t want you to,” Sam interrupts. “We want you to have what you need to recover from what you’ve been through.”

“Thank you,” Pietro echoes his sister, his voice soft.

The meeting breaks up after that; the twins retreat back to their rooms and the Avengers go their separate ways to do the things they need to do. Darcy finds herself at loose ends, with nothing she really needs to do, so she grabs her StarkPad and tosses herself into a chair in the common room to read a book. And that’s where she is when JARVIS says, “Ms. Lewis, as you are the only unengaged Avenger at the moment, would you care to handle an incident in the lobby?”

Darcy sits up, putting her StarkPad aside. “What’s going on?” she asks, standing up. “Do I need to suit up?”

“I do not believe so,” JARVIS replies. “Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross has arrived and is demanding to be allowed upstairs.”

“All right,” Darcy says. “I’ll handle him. Let the front desk know I’m on my way.”

She crosses the room to the elevator and heads downstairs; when she arrives in the lobby, she finds Ross and his Diplomatic Security Service bodyguards standing at the front desk. People all over the lobby are staring while Ross berates a young woman at a high volume. Darcy strolls over to the desk and slams a hand down on the surface. “Shut up.”

He rounds on her, his face red, a vein pulsing in his forehead. “How dare you?!” he demands. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yeah, I know, I just don’t give a fuck.” Darcy turns to the young woman he was yelling at. “Amelia, why don’t you take a quick break? Go have a cup of coffee or something.”

Amelia gives Darcy a grateful look and turns, heading for a door marked “Employees Only.”

Darcy turns back to Ross. “Now, let’s try this again. “I’m Darcy Lewis. I think you’ve heard of me.”

“It’s about damn time one of you freaks got down here,” Ross snarls. “I want all of you in a room right now.”

“And I want a pony,” Darcy replies. “Guess we’re both out of luck. You’ll need to make an appointment.” She studies him for a moment, mentally checking the schedule. “I think we can fit you in tomorrow about 4:00 for a half an hour.”

“I said _right now._ ”

“And I said no,” Darcy replies. “Clearly that’s a word you don’t hear often enough. But we don’t answer to you. If you want a meeting, you can have a meeting, but you’ll do it at our convenience. Do you want the 4:00 slot or not? Going once, going twice.”

Ross snarls again. “Fine. But you better all be there!”

“Oh, I’m sure we will be – barring any emergency world saving that needs to happen.”

Ross turns on his heel and stalks out of the lobby, trailed by his security guards, and Darcy sighs, then flaps her hands in a general wave at the assembled crowd. “Show’s over, folks. As you were.” There’s a moment’s pause, and then the regular business of the Tower begins again. Darcy blows out a breath, gives a short smile to the young man still at the reception desk, and turns, heading back upstairs.

~*~

“No telling what he wants,” Darcy says over dinner that night as everyone gathers at the table. It’s a bit more cramped with the twins there, but that’s all right, though if Darcy knows Tony, there’ll be a bigger table in a couple of days.

Tonight was Tony’s turn to cook, so of course they’re having take-out. He ordered in Chinese, and there’s some of pretty much everything on the menu, so the dishes are being shared out family style. Darcy has to poke James with her chopsticks to get him to stop staring at her egg rolls, and in retaliation he pokes her in the ribs with one finger where he knows she’s ticklish. Clint laughs at the squeak she lets out, and she gives him the finger before stealing a spare rib off his plate.

“Children,” Steve says serenely, and James gives him the finger as well. Steve sticks his tongue out.

Wanda giggles. “I didn’t know you would all be so silly.”

Bruce smiles. “We try to project an air of competency in public, but we’re mostly all small children underneath.”

“Speak for yourself,” Natasha interjects, and Darcy laughs.

“Don’t let her fool you,” Sam says to Wanda, grinning. “Just last week she and Clint got into a wrestling match over Mario Kart.”

“I won,” Natasha adds, more than a little smug about it.

“You cheated,” Clint accuses without heat.

Pietro shakes his head. “You have fun,” he says softly. “All of you.”

“We do,” Thor says. “We fight so much, you see. Our business is deadly serious. So when we have free time, when we are simply together like this, we put seriousness aside.”

“Work hard, play hard,” Tony agrees.

Everyone around the table nods. “Plus,” Pepper adds, “we’re all just very good friends, and we play like it.”

“Are you an Avenger, too?” Wanda asks.

Pepper shakes her head. “Oh, no. I run Stark Industries; that’s all I can handle. I wouldn’t really want to be a superhero anyway. Too much responsibility.” She smiles.

Wanda laughs.

~*~

“So how do we want to play this?” Clint asks the group over breakfast the next day. “Are we coming in serious or sarcastic, are we formal, costumed, casual?”

“Serious but casual, I think,” Tony says after a moment of thought. “We don’t want him thinking we’re giving him more respect than he deserves – which, in case you were wondering, is _none._ ”

“Aw man,” Darcy says. “I wanted to be sarcastic.”

“Are you ever _not_ sarcastic?” Clint wants to know.

Darcy makes a face at him.

“Children,” Steve says firmly.

Pietro looks confused. “May I ask what is the subject?”

Bruce gives him a short explanation about Ross and the Superhuman Registration Act. “Not sure what he wants with us today, though.”

“I know,” James says. “We made the news in Symkaria.”

“We what now?” Sam asks.

“They recognized us at the hospital,” James explains. “JARVIS, pull up that article you showed me?”

The smart panels on the table all flicker to life with a copy of an article from an eastern European gossip site. It’s in Latverian, but the translation is available and it’s short but sweet. It states simply that the Avengers were seen in Symkaria, that Captain America and Iron Man brought an injured woman to the hospital, and that it is believed the woman was later taken into custody by INTERPOL. There’s little else besides speculation.

“How did you even know about this?” Steve asks.

“Got a Google alert,” James admits, going a little red.

“Oh my God,” Tony says. “You’re reading our press.”

“Well, you read the tweets,” James replies, a little defensive.

Tony inclines his head. “Fair point. So you think Ross saw this?”

“Just about guarantee it,” James says, nodding.

Steve sighs. “Well, at least we know what we’re dealing with.”

~*~

Ross arrives at 3:45 and demands to see the Avengers; the reception desk stonewalls him and this time, when he tries to kick up a fuss, security intervenes. He’s forced to settle down or be removed from the premises. At exactly 4:00, Amelia calls his name. “Mr. Ross, you can go up now. The third elevator will take you where you need to go.”

“What floor?” Ross demands gruffly.

Amelia gives him a bland smile. “The elevator will take you where you need to go, Mr. Ross. Have a nice day.” Then she leans around him and smiles at the next person in line. “Hi, welcome to Stark Tower; how can I help you?”

Ross is forced to take his entourage and trust the elevator – which turns out not to have any buttons anyway – to take him where he needs to go.

The Avengers are waiting for him when he’s shown into a conference room on the sixty-fifth floor. They look up as he enters, and Darcy says, “Good afternoon, Mr. Ross. Thanks for coming. How can we help you today?”

“You people think you can just do whatever you want, don’t you?” Ross snarls, stalking into the room. “You think you can just waltz around the world doing whatever it is you do, and nobody can do or say a thing to you about it.”

James shrugs. “Kinda, yeah.”

“Well, you’re wrong.” Ross tosses a packet of paper onto the table. “That’s a Congressional order. None of you is to leave New York until given permission to do so.”

“Oh, screw you, Ross,” Tony says. “That’s legally unenforceable and you know it. My lawyers will have it thrown out of court before you can make it out of the building.”

“We’ll see,” Ross replies. “But until you can make it all the way to the Supreme Court, none of you leaves the city. And you don’t get to engage in your little quasi-military joyrides any more, either.”

“Are you sure that’s how you want to play this?” Clint asks, and his voice is genial but dangerous all the same. “Are you _really_ sure?”

“You people need to be put into check,” Ross snaps. “And I’m the man to do it.”

“Is that what you think?” Thor asks softly.

Sam shakes his head. “You don’t know us very well, General, so I’ll chalk it up to inexperience, but you gotta know this isn’t gonna go the way you think it will.”

“It’ll go any way I say it goes,” Ross boasts.

Steve laughs, and it’s a hollow sound. “That’s fine,” he says. “We’ve been talking about this, and we came to a decision as a group. So long as you want to restrict our freedoms in any way, you get nothing from us. Have fun fighting off the next alien invasion on your own, General; the Avengers won’t be there. As long as this continues, we’re going to sit tight right here in this Tower and let you and your compatriots in the government figure things out for yourselves.” He stands up. “Have a good day, General.”

The others stand with him and, as a group, they leave the room.

Ross stares after them, realizing too late that he’s somehow been checkmated – but he isn’t sure how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Banned Together Bingo 2020 prompt "benign witch".


	4. Chapter 4

**September 2014**

**New York, NY**

The Avengers range on the back of a stage in the Tower’s press room, shoulder to shoulder in a show of solidarity for their leader, who stands at a podium facing an audience which is, if not hostile, at the very least unpleasantly curious. It’s time for a press conference, which all of them hate, but this one is absolutely necessary.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Steve begins, “I understand that there is a great deal of well-founded concern about the recent Doombot attack on New York. I’ll do my best to answer all your questions, but I want to begin with a statement.”

There is silence in the room, broken only by the incessant clicking of camera shutters and the soft buzz of electrical equipment. The air conditioning cycles off, and Steve clears his throat, glancing down at his index cards and then back up again at the assembled reporters.

“As you all know, there is a longstanding grudge between the Fantastic Four and Victor von Doom. Yesterday, several Doombots landed outside the Baxter Building and attacked, doing a great deal of property damage in the process. Fortunately there was no loss of life, and though I understand some bystanders were injured, we’re grateful to know that the injuries are all minor and everyone is expected to make full recoveries.”

“Captain, where were the Avengers during all this?” a voice calls from the middle of the pack. A clamor of voices follows this, and Steve holds up a hand. “Please hold your questions until the end; I intend to hopefully answer as many of them as possible during my statement.”

When the clamor dies down, Steve continues. “As you all know, the Avengers were not present during yesterday’s assault. There is, in fact, a very good reason for that.” Steve pauses, mostly for effect. “As you may know, we destroyed a HYDRA base in Symkaria last month, and some HYDRA scientists were remanded to the custody of INTERPOL in the course of that operation. Well, it would seem that our esteemed government does not approve of the destruction of HYDRA bases; two days after we returned, Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross brought us a copy of a Congressional order which compels the Avengers both to remain in New York City until granted permission to leave and also to refrain from engaging in any military-style actions without Congressional approval.”

A pair of interns quietly begins passing through the crowd, and Steve gestures to them. “There’s a copy of the order for everyone who wants one.”

Once the copies have all been passed out, Steve continues. “We have been to court already regarding this clearly unconstitutional order. While our freedom of movement was immediately restored to us, and thus we may now _go_ anywhere we choose, the court opted not to lift the restriction on military-style actions. Therefore we were unable to participate in the defense of the city against the Doombots yesterday _specifically_ because Congress has forbidden us to do so.”

“Captain,” another reporter calls out, “do you have any idea what the impetus was behind this order?”

Steve pauses, then says carefully, “Before I answer that question, I need to make it clear that we do not _know_ for certain what the impetus was. However, we have reason to believe that it’s directly related to the push we’ve seen toward the Superhuman Registration Act – and you all know how I feel about that, so there’s no sense in revisiting that question.”

“Sir, the push for the SRA has been spearheaded by Secretary Ross; do you believe he was behind this order you received?” asks another reporter.

“Again,” Steve says, “we don’t _know_ anything for certain, but we certainly believe so.”

Another question comes. “Why the Avengers and not the Four or the X-Men?”

“We don’t know,” Steve replies. “Certainly there’s been a lot of bad feeling stirred up about the X-Men, and about mutants in general – sentiments which, I feel it necessary to say, we do _not_ support. And certainly there has been a lot of, shall we say, _questionable_ work done by Dr. Richards of the Four. But as to why the Avengers in particular have been targeted and not other superhuman groups, we can’t say.”

There’s a clamor of voices shouting questions, and Steve holds up a hand. “One at a time, please.” Then he calls on a young man in the back.

Half an hour later, when the questions are starting to get repetitive, Steve finally calls a halt to the conference. “That’s unfortunately all the time we have today,” he says. “If you have further questions, please forward them to our Public Relations office, and we’ll make sure you get answers right away. Thank you all very much for coming.”

He steps away from the podium and turns, leaving the stage. The others follow him, ignoring the questions that are still being shouted at them.

~*~

“That seemed very stressful,” Wanda says as the Avengers pile out of the elevator and into the common room.

“It was very stressful,” Steve confirms. He glances at the television, where MSNBC is still playing, though it’s on mute. “Did you watch the whole thing?”

“We did,” Pietro says. “I was very impressed. You are good at this, Steve.”

“Long practice,” Steve replies, grinning. “I used to have to do stuff like that when I was with the USO in the war.”

“And even when you were with the team, remember?” James interjects, leaning over to drop a kiss on Darcy’s cheek as she turns toward the kitchen. He glances over at the twins. “They were always coming to interview him. Never wanted to talk to the rest of us.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Steve says. “There were sometimes publications that wanted to talk to Jim or Gabe.”

“True,” James agrees, nodding. “That was always good, when they got recognized.”

“Why was that good?” Wanda asks.

“The Howling Commandos were the first integrated American military unit,” Sam explains, taking over from Steve. “Before that, black soldiers and Asian soldiers served in their own units.”

Pietro’s face squinches up. “But… why?”

“Racism,” Sam says succinctly. “Back in those days, almost everything was segregated. Black folks didn’t go to white clubs, things like that. In some places, especially in the South but not exclusively, things were so bad that you’d see drinking fountains – one for white folks and one for black folks.”

“That seems very stupid,” Wanda says.

Sam’s eyebrows twitch. “Yeah, the same way as it’s stupid to segregate Roma people and call them bad names.”

“Oh, that’s different, though,” Pietro says – and then he stops. “Isn’t it?”

“Is it?” Sam asks softly.

Wanda shakes her head slowly. “It’s not. It’s the same.”

Pietro chews his lip. “They do the same to Jewish people,” he says carefully. “And… and to mutants.”

“Yes, they do,” Sam says. “And it’s wrong.”

“So… so that’s why they wanted to talk to Gabe and Jim? Because they were black?” Wanda asks.

“Gabe was,” Steve says softly. “Jim’s family was Japanese. They were locked up in a camp in Tule Lake.”

“In a camp?” Pietro repeats, jerking backward in shock. “Like the Jewish camps?”

“Not as bad,” James says, “but yes, like the Jewish camps. Anyone on the West Coast that was of Japanese descent was forced to move into those camps because the government thought they might be collaborating with the Japanese government.”

“That’s stupid!” Wanda exclaims.

James nods. “Yes, yes it is.”

“Stereotyping and discrimination like that is always stupid,” Sam says. “And I’m not just saying that because I keep getting pulled over for driving while black.” Off the twins’ curious glances, he waves a hand. “I’ll explain later. For now, just… yeah. America has a bad history when it comes to relations between black folks and white folks, and it’s not _much_ better now than it has been in the past.”

Pietro shakes his head. “I want to do something to stop it,” he says softly. “It’s wrong.”

Sam smiles. “I’ll get you some resources to start reading and learning,” he says. “Then you can decide where you want to get involved in the fight.”

~*~

Absolutely no one is surprised when Thaddeus Ross shows up in the lobby of the Tower the next morning, demanding Steve at the top of his lungs.

He is escorted out of the building.

~*~

Two days after that, things get worse.

~*~

With an appointment this time, Ross shows up at the Tower once again. Only this time he’s looking smug. He brings an intern with him, a young man who hands a packet of paper to each of the Avengers in turn. He waits while they glance at them.

“The Symkaria Accords?” Darcy reads from the front page. “The hell is this shit, Ross?”

“That’s Mr. Secretary, to you,” Ross replies, and then he smiles broadly. It’s a disturbing expression. “These are, as you see, the Symkaria Accords. Approved by a hundred and seventeen countries, it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary.”

“What the hell?” Steve asks.

Ross smirks. “For the past several years, you’ve operated with unlimited power and no supervision. Public opinion is increasingly divided over your actions. Some people see you as heroes, certainly, but an increasing number of us believe that you are nothing more than dangerous vigilantes, or…” he pauses here, his eyes falling on Bruce. “…living weapons of mass destruction. Regardless of your opinion, after your violation of the sovereignty of Symkaria, this is an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. As I told you before, you people need to be put into check. So the UN is doing exactly that.”

“Even after the Doombots, you think this is a good idea?” Rhodey asks from behind Tony.

“ _Because_ of the Doombots,” Ross replies. “At least in part.”

“So what happens if we decide we don’t intend to be bound by these… Accords?” Darcy asks, flipping lazily through her copy.

“Then you… retire,” Ross says. “You either do things our way or you don’t do them at all.”

“Oh, okay,” Darcy says. “Then I quit.”

“Don’t be so hasty,” Tony says, even as Darcy makes to get up from her chair. “These Accords haven’t passed yet, have they?”

“They’ve been agreed to by a hundred and seventeen countries,” Ross repeats.

“Yeah, but they haven’t _passed_ , or it would’ve been on the news. Hell, I’m surprised it hasn’t been on the news already. So that means things aren’t quite as solid as you might think they are.” He smirks, then pats the cover of his copy of the Accords. “Thanks for these. We’ll pass them on to our lawyers. Have a nice day.”

“You – ”

“He _said_ have a nice _day,_ ” James says, low and dangerous. “In English, that means _goodbye._ ”

The Avengers sit back in their chairs and stare at Ross. The hostility in the room is palpable. “This isn’t the end of this,” Ross growls, and takes his leave.

Once he’s gone, Steve sits forward. “Darcy, I’d like you to take a copy to Xavier,” he says, and Darcy immediately reaches for her copy of the Accords. “Tony, you and I should head up to the Baxter Building.”

Tony nods. “The rest of you need to start reaching out to your contacts,” he says. “We need every super we can get involved in this. If they want a fight, we’ll give them one.”

James laughs softly. “Unionizing the superheroes?”

“Come on you good workers, good news to you I’ll tell / how the good old union has come in here to dwell,” Steve sings in a surprisingly nice baritone.

James joins him for the next line: “Which side are you on, oh, which side are you on?”

“Power to the workers!” Darcy exclaims. Then she stands, picking up her copy of the Accords. “All right, I’m heading upstate. Steve, mind if I borrow your bike?”

“Absolutely,” Steve replies. “Key’s in the saddlebag.”

“Thanks.” She leaves the room, heading upstairs to get her jacket and change into heavier jeans and boots.

~*~

**September 2014**

**Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters**

Darcy breaks every speed law on the books getting upstate to Salem Center. She called ahead to let them know she was coming, but she still blows through at least three townships at over seventy miles an hour, and makes it to the Xavier School a little after sundown. The man himself is waiting when she arrives, along with Logan and Ororo, and she puts a copy of the Accords into Charles Xavier’s hands. “It’s a heavy read,” she says, “but JARVIS put together a summary. That’s the first five pages. Basically what you need to know is that the UN is pissed at the Avengers and they’ve decided to take it out on everyone who’s enhanced or a super.”

“They’ve been pissed with you since that time you blew up DC,” Logan replies.

“Regardless,” Ororo says, “give us the short and sweet version of what we have here.”

“Right,” Darcy says. She takes a deep breath. “The parts you don’t care about yet are the ones where they want to put the Avengers specifically under UN control. They want us to sit when we’re told to sit and bite when we’re told to bite.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to work out the tension between them. “The part that you _do_ care about right now is the part where the Superhuman Registration Act is part of the Accords. They want to extend that and put every super in the world on a list.”

“They want to what?!” Ororo exclaims at the same time as Logan bursts out with “Bullshit!”

Darcy shakes her head. “It’s true. It’s all in there, but it’s buried deep. They didn’t want us to find it until it was too late.”

“What do you propose that we do about it?” Xavier asks calmly.

At that point, Darcy flops into a chair. “I genuinely have no idea,” she admits. “I’m not a strategist, and especially not a political strategist. Right now we’re reaching out, trying to call in everyone we can find. Tony and Steve are at the Baxter Building talking to the Four; my husband James and Clint Barton are out in the city, looking for some individual supers we’ve heard about. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, for one, and some kid out in Queens that runs around in a spider suit. Natasha’s putting out the word for some people she either knows or knows of, I’m not sure which. We’re just trying to get in touch with everyone local who might remotely be affected by this.”

“So you’re suggesting, what, a powwow?” Logan asks.

“That’s rude,” Darcy says repressively. “I am suggesting a summit meeting. Whoever your leadership is here, the Four, us, and whichever of the independents are willing to get involved. We don’t have much time to fight this.”

“ _Can_ we fight this?” Ororo asks, looking over at Xavier.

Xavier leafs through the packet of papers before looking up at Ororo. “We can fight this,” he says simply. He looks over at Darcy. “We’ll be at your summit meeting. I assume you mean this for tomorrow morning?”

“Friday. Avengers Tower. You’ll be expected at the front.”

Xavier nods once, sharply. “We’ll be there.”

“Thank you,” Darcy says sincerely. She stands up. “I’ll get out of your way so you can get familiar with the…” She waves a hand at the papers. “Mess.”

Logan walks her out to her bike. “You know you’re all going to take the fall for this one,” he says conversationally, pulling out a cigar once they’re in the parking lot.

She nods. “Yeah. We figured. And I mean, it’s fair. Out of all the super groups, we make the most noise. Squeaky wheel and all that. Honestly, I figured they’d come down on us eventually – though I appear to be the only one who expected it. It’s them trying to drag the rest of you down with us that surprised me.”

Logan squints up at the night sky. “These kids have been through enough,” he says simply.

Darcy hums. “They’re resilient,” she says. “More so than most kids, I think. But yeah, I think your kids here deserve to be left alone. I’m gonna do everything I can – and so are the rest of us – to try and make sure that happens.”

“Just as long as everybody understands that for us, these kids are gonna be our priority.”

“Of course.” Darcy offers a hand to shake, then climbs onto her bike. “See you in the morning,” she says, and she pulls out, heading for the freeway at a much safer rate of speed than she used in arriving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Banned Together Bingo 2020 square "black people's ideas".


	5. Chapter 5

**September 2014**

**New York, NY**

It’s nearly nine by the time Darcy makes it home. She checks in with Steve and Tony to let them know that Xavier and company will attend, and then she heads directly to the apartment she shares with James. He’s taking food out of the oven when she gets there, and she falls on it with the gusto of a large hound. “Lenin,” she says around a mouthful of spaghetti, “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“I figured you’d forget to eat,” he replies, pushing a plate of garlic bread toward her. “How was the trip?”

“Productive,” she tells him. “They’re going to be here.”

“Good. We had a good afternoon, too; found that Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and talked to a guy who calls himself Punisher, and I think Nat got ahold of that spider kid, who said he’s got lines on a bunch of other kids who might be interested.”

“Ooh, we’re mobilizing the youth, I love it,” Darcy says. “Power to the workers!”

James laughs and sings the first verse of the old Soviet national anthem. She sings along with him for a couple of lines, then returns to her food. “It’s good, what we’re doing,” she says. “Organizing always makes us stronger.”

“There used to be union riots and stuff,” James tells her. “When me and Steve were kids, the factory workers would organize. People still remembered the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, you know, so they’d talk about that in their speeches.”

“The what, now?” Darcy asks.

“Triangle Shirtwaist was a factory; ready-made ladies’ blouses. It caught fire – this was a few years before I was born – and something like 150 people died because the owners had locked the doors and they couldn’t get out.”

Darcy’s mouth drops open. “The doors were locked?!”

James nods. “The bosses would do that back then; stopped people taking extra breaks and stuff. After the fire, the Ladies Garment Workers union got a lot stronger and they got legislation passed to stop that shit.”

“Power to the workers,” Darcy says again, but this time she’s not facetious about it.

“Damn right,” James agrees. “So I wasn’t really joking when I asked Steve about organizing the supers; it might not be a union, exactly, but we’re stronger together than we ever could be alone, even as small groups. Just look at how people treat mutants. Even though there’s a lot more of them than there are of us science experiments, they get treated bad and people call them names, attack them, all that. Instead of the government trying to sanction and control them, they oughta be trying to protect them. And if we all work together, maybe we can make that happen.”

Darcy nods. “You’re right,” she says. “And somebody needs to say that up in front of the UN, rather than all this garbage Ross is spewing.”

“It might just happen that way,” James says, taking her empty plate and walking it to the sink. “You never know.”

~*~

Eight o’clock on Friday morning finds the Avengers in a huge meeting space on the tenth floor, watching as the catering staff lays out a beautiful hot breakfast buffet. The Fantastic Four arrive first and Johnny makes a beeline for the food; the other three, though, run into Darcy and Steve as they enter. They exchange cheerful morning greetings before Darcy says, “I hope you’re hungry; the kitchens are working overtime and the French toast is to die for.”

“We’ll check it out,” Ben Grimm says in his deep, scratchy voice. “You’re Darcy Lewis, right? Snow Maiden?”

“That’s me,” Darcy replies, sticking her hand out to shake. “Pleased to meet you. Can I call you Ben?”

“Sure,” Grimm replies, shaking her hand and giving her a rocky smile. He looks back and forth between her and Steve. “What can you tell us about this thing?”

“We’ve got a whole presentation planned,” Steve assures him. “We’ve been up all night going through this thing and we have a good overview, even if we’re lacking some of the nuances. Most of the thing is currently Avengers-specific, but…”

“But the chances are good that they’ll be expanded sometime in the near future to include anyone and everyone they deem enhanced or super or whatever,” Sue puts in, looking wry. “That’s what the registry is for.”

Darcy and Steve both nod. “That’s what we’re pretty afraid of,” he admits. “But listen, go on and fill your plates; we won’t get started until about eight-thirty or so. There’ll be plenty of time to talk business.”

Sue, Ben, and Reed all make their way toward the buffet; just as they get to the edge of earshot, Darcy hears Reed start complaining about the food being a way for Tony to show off. She rolls her eyes at Steve, and they make their way to the main doors, greeting everyone as they enter and inviting them to get food and grab a seat at one of the scattered tables.

At one point, Steve is caught in conversation with a man who identifies himself as Frank Castle; while they chat, Darcy looks around as the room starts to fill up. If it weren’t for the early hour and the serious air in the room, it could easily be a casual version of one of Tony’s glitzy galas. But the air _is_ serious, and the buzz of conversation is low and thoughtful. She’s drawn out of her contemplation by the sound of a young man clearing his throat behind her. “Excuse me,” says the voice of someone who cannot possibly be more than a boy. “Is this the superhero meeting?”

Darcy turns and finds herself face-to-face with a red, web-covered mask. “Hey, you’re the Spider-Kid!” she exclaims, holding out a hand to shake. “Come on in. We’re glad you came.”

“Spider- _Man,_ ” the kid corrects her, shaking her hand.

“I apologize,” Darcy says. “Spider-Man. Queens, right?”

“Yeah,” Spider-Man says. “I’m here kind of as a representative; there’s a whole bunch of us, like, people my age, teenagers and stuff, but we were afraid if we were all out of school at the same time it would look suspicious, so I said I’d come.” He pauses. “So, uh, is it true what they’re saying? That the government wants to make all the supers identify themselves? Put us all on some kind of watch list?”

“It’s true, I’m afraid,” Darcy replies. “We’ll have more information for everybody once we’ve gotten started. Why don’t you get some breakfast before we begin? There’s plenty.”

“Oh, thanks,” Spider-Man replies. “I’ll do that. Sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

“Oh, I didn’t give it,” Darcy replies, laughing. “Sorry about that. Darcy Lewis. Codename Snow Maiden.”

The young man flinches back in surprise. “Really? Hey, is it true you’re married to the Winter Soldier?”

Darcy grins. “It’s true. If you want to meet him, I can arrange that later. Him, Cap, whoever you’d like.”

“Really?” the kid asks, his voice cracking in surprise.

“You bet,” Darcy replies. She claps him on the shoulder. “Go eat, kid; I can hear your stomach rumbling. Stay at the end and I’ll introduce you to everybody.”

“Thanks!” the kid exclaims, and takes off toward the buffet spread.

The X-Men are the last to arrive, filing in just at eight-thirty. There’s a delay while the Avengers wait for them to get food and find their places, and then Tony steps up to the podium. “Good morning,” he says. “Thanks for joining us. I hope everybody got food, and you should all feel free to get more if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks!” someone shouts, and there’s a general chuckle around the room. Darcy’s actually grateful for whoever the wag is; the tension is broken, and everyone seems to shift a little into a serious-but-relaxed mode.

Tony grins. “You’re welcome. I always enjoy the opportunity to show off for friends.” He casts a jaundiced eye at Reed Richards and there’s another general chuckle. Darcy, in the back of the room with a blueberry muffin roughly the size of her head, just rolls her eyes.

“So, I’m sure most of you know something about why we’re all here, but we have a presentation, slideshow and all, to give you all the bullet points and make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Thor, on the far end of the room, opens a door, and a stream of young people in business casual dress enters, each one carrying armfuls of manila envelopes. They begin weaving among the tables, handing out the envelopes, and by the time they’re done, everyone has one. There’s a minute of shuffling while everyone pulls out the contents: a plain ballpoint pen and a hard copy of the slides they’ll be using in their presentation, so that everyone has the ability to jot down notes and questions. That had been Clint’s idea; Darcy considers it a stroke of genius.

While everyone’s getting re-settled, the young interns all file out of the room; two of them return pushing carts loaded with heavy stacks of paper. Tony gestures to them. “If anyone wants their own personal copy of the Accords to read on your own time, feel free to grab one. There should be enough for everyone, but if we run out we can print more.”

The interns move among the tables again, offering copies of the Accords to anyone who wants one. There’s general shuffling, a buzz of conversation, and then settling again.

“Okay,” Tony says. “Are we ready to start?”

“Not quite,” says a voice from the still-open door. Everyone turns just in time to see a tall, older man, helmeted and caped, sweep – there can be no other word for it – into the room, followed by several other individuals. “I apologize for our tardiness.”

“Oh, good,” Darcy blurts. “You _did_ get the word. I was afraid you might not; nobody I talked to seemed to know where you were.”

There’s a sigh of relief that sweeps through the room; almost everyone had been sure they were about to witness some kind of _Maleficent-_ style display of offense due to lack of invitation. Clearly they are not, and everyone who knows the man in question is relieved.

The man gives Darcy a careful nod. “You must be the Snow Maiden,” he says, striding over to shake her hand.

“And you’re Magneto,” Darcy replies. “I’m glad you and your Brotherhood could make it. This matter concerns all of us, and I’m glad we can all put our rivalries aside for now.”

“INDEED,” booms a voice from the door, and there are gasps of shock across the room as everyone recognizes Victor von Doom. He tilts his head slightly, and the effect is almost that of a smirk. “MANY SEEM SURPRISED. DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT DOOM IS A GREAT SORCERER, AND AS SUCH WOULD BE PLACED ON JUST SUCH A REGISTRY AS THE REST OF YOU?”

“It’s true,” says Stephen Strange, stepping into the room from behind Doom. “Sorry we’re all late.”

“It’s not a party without crashers,” Tony replies cheerfully from the podium. “We’ll take five, let you all get food and seats. Thor, can you ask one of the interns to bring more packets, please?”

With a nod, Thor leans back out the door he’s been semi-guarding, speaking to someone outside. A few moments later, there is a cart of manila envelopes being brought into the room by a young woman with huge eyes. She tries desperately to stare unobtrusively as she brings packets to the newly-filling tables, and Darcy can’t help but chuckle when the girl nearly trips over herself at the sight of Mystique’s bright blue skin.

The buzz of conversation rises in the room again as the newcomers all get settled, and then Tony returns to the podium. “All right,” he says. “Is everyone ready to get started?”

~*~

“So,” Tony says, “the first thing we need to address is the elephant in the room, which is of course that this was all precipitated by us – and by _us_ I mean the Avengers. We’ve been on the radar since everything that went down in DC last year, and between Seattle earlier this year and Symkaria last week, we’ve apparently seriously pissed off some people in high places.”

“So this is the Avengers’ fault?” someone calls from the audience.

Tony grimaces. “I wouldn’t say _fault,_ necessarily, but I will admit that our actions may have precipitated what’s happening now.”

“In fairness,” Sue Storm says firmly, “you’re not the only ones who’ve been operating outside of approved channels.”

Tony nods, acknowledging the point. “Regardless,” he says, “this is where we stand now, and I wanted to face up to the role that the Avengers have played in this so that we don’t end up off track later with accusations of whose fault this is. We acknowledge our responsibility and we’re going to do everything we can to try and fix it.”

As he says this, Darcy catches movement from the corner of her eye; there’s a figure in all black standing just outside the doorway, clearly there for the meeting but unwilling to enter. She crosses the room to grab a packet and a copy of the Accords and then returns, approaching the figure and offering the two items. “You’re welcome to join us,” she says to the featureless black cat-eared mask. “We have food and plenty of space for you to sit.”

There’s a long pause, during which Tony says something funny and the audience laughs, and then Darcy blinks in surprise when T’Challa’s voice issues from under the mask. “Thank you,” he says. “I do not care to eat, but I will accept your invitation to sit.” He gives her a slight nod, then slips into a seat near the back of the room, opening the packet and preparing to take notes, looking for all the world like an attentive school pupil. She turns her focus back to Tony, who has just put the first slide up on a screen.

“The most important thing in the Accords is buried deep in section twelve,” he says, and there’s a flutter of paper as people turn to that section in their copies of the Accords. “That’s the one that says anyone who exhibits superhuman, extrahuman, enhanced, or similar traits must register themselves with their country’s government immediately upon the manifestation of the said traits.” He looks out at the assembled guests, now deathly silent. “I leave it to you,” he says, “to wonder who decides what those terms actually mean and how they’ll be applied.” He taps his reactor. “Do sufficiently advanced prosthetics count as enhancements? Or does that word only apply to people like Steve over here, or Bruce Banner, who got shot up with radiation from crazy science experiments?”

“What does extrahuman even mean?” Spider-Man asks from the edge of the crowd.

Tony shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says simply. The silence after that is charged.

“So we have to, what, give our names to the government?” asks a young woman Darcy’s never met.

“That’s subsection one,” Tony says, nodding. “It says each government shall maintain a list or registry of superhuman blah blah individuals residing within their borders.” He pauses for effect. “Subsection three is the one where the individuals on those lists are to be monitored in perpetuity.”

“Monitored by whom?” Magneto asks.

Tony spreads his arms. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he says. “I am assuming that each country will be expected to set up some kind of Department of Minding Superhumans’ Business, but that’s not laid out, so I guess there’ll be plenty of leeway for each country to decide for itself how best to organize it.”

“Yeah, where’s the subsection that says they can conscript us and force us to work for them?” Mystique asks dryly.

“That’s not there yet,” Tony says. “Not for everyone. But for the Avengers specifically, it’s in section four.” Then he waves a hand at the slide on the screen behind him. “But we’ll get there. Right now, I want to talk about the registry some more.”

Around 11:30, they take a break. The catering staff has brought in a wide array of drinks and snacks, and a young man gets on the microphone and very politely advises them that lunch will be served, and that anyone with specific dietary needs should come and see him. A few people drift in his direction and he greets them attentively, notepad in hand.

James makes his way around the room to Darcy. “Seems like it’s going good so far,” he says.

She nods. “I’m impressed with the way Tony’s running this thing. I would not have pegged him to be able to manage it this long without losing his mind and going off on a crazy tangent or something.”

“Tony’s got it in him when the stakes are high enough,” James replies. “He just has to be sufficiently motivated.”

“This is definitely sufficiently motivating,” Darcy says, nodding.

T’Challa, his face still covered by his mask, approaches them. “You’re doing well?” he asks.

Darcy smiles. “We’re great,” she says. “Except for this whole Accords thing. You?”

“Well enough,” T’Challa replies. “Shuri sends her greetings.” He looks around the room. “It’s quite a motley gathering.”

“Takes all kinds,” James agrees. He tilts his head at T’Challa. “So where does Wakanda stand on the Accords?”

“Firmly against,” he assures them. “The interests of our country sometimes require us to operate clandestinely in others, such as the events in Madripoor when Darcy and I first met. Indeed, much like the American CIA. Not to mention the fact that we have a reputation as indigent, ignorant dirt-farmers to uphold. Such a reputation might be heavily endangered if it came to light that the monarch of Wakanda himself is superhuman.”

“No doubt,” Darcy agrees.

“Well,” T’Challa says, “I believe I shall go and mingle with my newly-acquired fellows. We shall speak again before I leave this afternoon.”

“Sounds great,” James says, and T’Challa heads off to make good on his word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Banned Together Bingo 2020 prompt "communism".


	6. Chapter 6

**September 2014**

**New York, NY**

“All right,” Tony says around 4:30. “I think we have our plan. Whoever wants to be part of it – and we all fully understand that some of you won’t or can’t – needs to sign up for a seat on the jet. Stark Industries will fly everyone to Vienna and we’ll leave Sunday to be there Monday. Questions?”

There are none, finally; everything has at long last been answered and sorted and decided. Tony nods, looking tired. “Then I suggest we adjourn.”

Steve steps up to the podium. “Before you go, we would _greatly_ appreciate it if everyone would leave us some kind of contact information. We don’t need your real name; whatever your code name is will do. But we think it’s important, if we’re going to present a united front, that we _stay_ united and do what we can to help each other.”

There’s a low buzz of conversation as everyone starts getting up and gathering their things. A few people slip out unobtrusively, but a great many others stay to either sign up for the jet or to leave contact information or both. Darcy leans against the wall between two windows and watches, making sure that she looks accessible if anyone has questions.

Just a couple of minutes later, Spider-Man sidles up to her. “So, uh,” he says. “Did you mean it when you said you’d introduce me?”

“Sure,” Darcy replies. “Come on; we’ll start with James.” She guides him around the outside of the room to where James is having a quick conversation with a young brown-skinned girl wearing a yellow domino mask.

James looks up and holds out a hand to her. “Hey, кукла, come and meet Ms. Marvel. Ms. Marvel, this is Darcy Lewis, the Snow Maiden.”

Darcy shakes the girl’s hand. “Nice to meet you. And let me introduce Spider-Man.” She draws the young man into the conversation and the four of them stand and chat for a few minutes before Darcy says, “Well, I’ve promised to introduce Spider-Man to the rest of the Avengers, so I’m going to go grab Tony while he’s not under active assault. Ms. Marvel, it was very nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” the girl replies, smiling brightly. Darcy steps away, and Spider-Man follows her.

Tony has in fact just finished a conversation with Mystique when Darcy approaches. “Hey, Tony,” she says. “Meet Spider-Man. Spider-Man, Tony Stark.”

The boy actually _squeaks_ in the middle of this introduction, and Tony’s eyes go a little sharp as he looks the kid up and down. “Nice suit,” he says. “You make that yourself?”

The spider-head mask bobs. “Yeah. My webs, too.”

Tony rocks on his feet momentarily before asking, “So the webs – you don’t, like, shoot them out of your – ”

“No!” the kid yelps. “Look, I have web shooters. It’s – it’s – I _make_ the fluid.”

“So you do chemistry,” Tony says, his voice way too casual to be real. The kid nods again.

“Tony, no,” Darcy warns.

He grins, slinging his arm around the kid’s shoulders. “Tony, _yes_ ,” he replies, before turning and strong-arming Spider-Man toward the nearest door. “C’mon, kid,” he says. “You’re gonna come up to my lab and show me how it’s done.”

Shaking her head, Darcy watches them leave, then turns back to the room at large to see if she can help or talk to anyone else.

~*~

Darcy flops down onto the couch in their living room that night and groans, kicking her shoes off and rubbing her feet against the thick carpeting. “I’m so _tired,_ ” she complains, and James chuckles, sitting down beside her.

He pats his thigh and she lifts her feet, shifting so she can put them in his lap, where he starts rubbing them. “Me, too,” he admits, and she gestures to his feet as well. After some shuffling, they figure out how to make it work, and they sit there on the couch rubbing each other’s feet.

“You think this is going to work?” she asks him after a few quiet minutes.

He sighs, then shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I really don’t. I sure hope so, though.”

“Me, too,” she says. “I actually kind of like what we do and I’d hate to quit doing it.”

“What, killing people?” he asks wryly.

She pinches his toe. “Protecting people, asshole,” she says. “It’s – I mean, we’re still killing people, but it’s the _right_ people this time.” She pauses, considering. “You told me once, back in Germany, that what we do is harsh but it was righteous. You were wrong then, but we had no way of knowing it. But now… now I’m pretty sure what we do _is_ righteous. We’re helping people. We’re stopping HYDRA and helping prevent them from doing to anybody else what they did to us. Like the twins. And I think that’s good work and I don’t want to stop doing it just because some dick like Ross has a bug up his ass about supers.”

James nods. “I think you’re right,” he says after a moment’s thought. “It _is_ righteous. And I don’t really want to stop, either.” He heaves a sigh. “I hope this works.”

“Me, too,” Darcy agrees. Then she shifts her foot, nudging him in the stomach. “Are you hungry, or can we just go to bed?”

“God, I don’t think I can eat anything else,” James says. “I grazed the buffet all day without even realizing it. I’ve eaten so much food today.”

“Me, too,” Darcy admits. She pulls her feet back and shifts, waiting for him to swing his legs out of her lap before she stands up. She offers him a hand and leans back, pulling him to his feet, and then sways forward, grinning as she falls into his arms and leans up to kiss him. “My Chefchen,” she murmurs.

She leads him to the bedroom by the hand and they take their time making love, and when they’re done and cuddling in the aftermath she says, “What do you think we’d do if we ended up retiring?”

“Interesting question,” he says, musing on it. “I’m thinking we’d go someplace warm. You could lay around in a bikini and – ”

She pinches his nipple gently. “Quit with the bikini,” she says. “I’m being serious.”

“We’d stay here, of course,” he says. “I’m pretty sure Tony isn’t going to kick any of us out and even if he did, we’ve got enough money that we could sit pretty anywhere we wanted. But we’ll stay. I mean, I’m still breakin’ stuff for R&D, and you’re still running the science labs.”

She nods. “True.” Then she yawns. “I guess I just… I don’t know. I never really think about what comes after.”

“After what?”

She shrugs. “What happens when we get old, Chefchen?” she says softly. “When we can’t do this any more?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he says firmly. Then he drops a kiss on her forehead. “Sleep for now. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

“Yeah, okay.” She yawns. “Love you, Chefchen.”

“Love you, too, my кукла.”

~*~

**September 2014**

**Teterboro, NJ**

Around noon the next day, the Avengers assemble at the private airfield in Teterboro where the Stark Industries jets are kept. When they arrive, they find a group of kids hanging around the entrance to one of the big hangars, staring at the planes. As they approach, Bruce frowns a little. “Shouldn’t you kids be in school?” he asks.

“Sure we should,” one of the girls replies. “But we’re not, because some asshole decided we should all be put on a registry.” She sticks her hand out. “Kate Bishop,” she says. “Also known as Hawkeye.”

“You can’t be Hawkeye,” Clint says, shouldering his way to the front to shake the girl’s hand. “ _I’m_ Hawkeye.”

“We’ll see about that,” the girl replies, her eyes glittering. Then she steps to the side, gesturing at her companions. “You met a couple of these people yesterday; we all decided to come together without our masks. America Chavez, Billy Kaplan, Teddy Altman, Kamala Khan, Doreen Green, Eli Bradley, and Peter Parker.”

The kids all chorus a greeting, and Darcy narrows her eyes at one of the boys. “Parker,” she says, “didn’t I meet you yesterday?”

He flushes, running a hand through tousled brown hair. “Yeah,” he admits. “I’m Spider-Man.”

“Oh, my new assistant,” Tony exclaims, brightening. “Good!” He turns to Bruce. “You can’t have him. He’s mine.”

“You can’t _have_ him either, Tony,” Steve interjects. “He has a family. And probably school and things.”

Natasha tilts her head at the group. “How did you even know about this?” she wants to know. “There were only two of you there yesterday.”

“We have a group chat,” America admits. “There’s a bunch of us, younger supers, mutants, enhanced, whatever you want to call it. We’ve got – well. We’ve got social media.”

“You kids and your social media,” James says, shaking his head. “It beats anything I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s really useful,” Teddy says.

Tony narrows his eyes at them. “Don’t you have families, like Steve said? Curfews?”

“We worked it out,” Eli says shortly. “The less you know, the better.”

“Yeah,” Kate says, smirking. “What you don’t know, you can’t screw up.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that,” Darcy replies. “You know what they say about how nothing is idiot-proof if you have a sufficiently talented idiot.”

“Oh, look,” Peter says almost gratefully as a line of cars starts to form at the airfield gate. “More people.”

~*~

**September 2014**

**Vienna, Austria**

The Avengers are, by strategic design, the last to enter the room at the UN’s Vienna offices. The UN chambers here are much like the arena-style ones shown on television and Darcy, having so recently testified before Congress, finds herself oddly unaffected. She nudges Natasha’s side. “Is this underwhelming to you, too?” she murmurs.

With a twitch of her lips, Natasha nods. “It’s a side effect of spending time in the halls of power,” she murmurs back. “You get less impressed with it once you realize it smells like a high school.”

Darcy chokes on a laugh, biting it back before anyone can turn and glare at her.

As the hearing gets started, the Avengers take seats in the gallery, and they wait while representatives of various countries get up to yell passionately about why the Avengers should be brought into check. Darcy finds herself yawning through it; they spent so much time yesterday visiting and revisiting points that their detractors might make that this is actually old hat; they and their colleagues and newfound friends (and rivals) went over every anti-super point they could think of and developed responses to each one.

James nudges her with his elbow. “You’re gonna end up swallowin’ a fly, you keep doing that.”

She rolls her eyes at him, but she obligingly tries to keep her yawns smaller or covered with her hand.

Finally, after the representative from Russia is done speaking about how terrifying it is to have an extramilitary group operating with impunity, the chair of the meeting calls on the representative from Wakanda to speak. The woman who stands now is an older woman, full of poise and gravitas. When she speaks, it is in isiXhosa. Darcy focuses her attention on the translation coming in through her earpiece.

“The people of Wakanda stand firmly in opposition to these Accords,” the Wakandan representative says. “They are antithetical to the freedom that this body is meant to support and defend.” She picks up a digital tablet from the table in front of her, swiping through whatever document she has, and continues speaking. “Wakanda agrees that there should be some oversight over whatever groups are operating actively to monitor and counter threats to our world.” Then she holds up the tablet as if to show everyone the words on its screen. “However, we find the inclusion of mandatory registrations to be a gross overreach that is deeply dangerous. We cannot and will not support nor sign these accords. Further, Wakanda stands ready to provide asylum to anyone of African descent who is or may be affected by these Accords if they pass.” With that, she sits down.

Someone else stands up across the room. Victor von Doom himself has come to represent Latveria today, and he clears his throat behind his mask, not even waiting to be acknowledged by the chair. “THE PEOPLE OF BOUNTIFUL LATVERIA OPPOSE THESE ACCORDS FOR MANY OF THE SAME REASONS THAT HAVE BEEN ENUMERATED BY OUR COLLEAGUE FROM WAKANDA,” he says, and he needs no microphone to be heard all the way around the room. “FURTHER, DOOM FINDS THE SUGGESTION OF A SUPERHUMAN REGISTRY PERSONALLY OFFENSIVE. IT IS CLEAR EVEN TO THE MOST ELEMENTARY OF OBSERVERS THAT THIS PROPOSED REGISTRY IS NOTHING MORE THAN A STEP TOWARD THE UNIVERSAL CONSCRIPTION OF SUPERHUMANS AND DOOM QUESTIONS THE SANITY OF THOSE WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA.” With that, he sits down again.

There’s a long moment of silence after that before Steve clears his throat and stands up. The man up on the dais just looks tired as he says, “The chair recognizes Captain Steven Rogers of the Avengers.” He gestures to a podium and Steve, dressed sharply in a dark blue suit and tie, makes his way down to the front of the room.

Darcy stands up quietly, moving to the nearest door and opening it. She waves across the hall to Peter, who jumps up and starts hurrying to get everyone’s attention, and while Steve is introducing himself, the assembled forty or so supers – almost all in costume today – begin filing quietly into the room.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” Steve is saying. “My name is Steve Rogers. Some people call me Captain America. I’m sure most of you know of me from media and from propaganda.” He takes a breath. “I’ve come here today to speak to you about these Accords, about what they mean to me and to people like me, what they mean to and for my team, and what they mean to and for the greater world at large.”

He raises a hand and gestures to the back of the room, and everyone turns. There are audible gasps at the sight of the arrayed supers, who stand shoulder to shoulder across the gallery. Some of the more easily recognizable faces are in the front: the Four, Thor and Tony, Charles Xavier in his wheelchair right next to Magneto, and Mystique. On the other side of Mystique stand Logan and Ororo, and on the other side of Ororo stands T’Challa in his panther costume, mask hiding his face.

“Ladies and gentlemen, these are my friends, my compatriots, my brothers in arms, and even my enemies. We have all come to you today as representatives of the superhumans of the greater New York area, and in some capacity as representatives of all the superhumans of the world. We are here to advise you that if the Accords pass, not only will we refuse to comply with any sort of forced registration, but we will also refuse to comply with any orders given by this or any other governmental or extra-governmental body.”

There’s a long, ringing silence before Steve speaks again. “We will not be coerced,” he says. “While those of us who operate in teams acknowledge the need for some kind of oversight – and we are willing to sit down and work in committee with those who are interested in developing that – we will not comply with any laws that attempt to compel us to serve in any capacity without our full and voluntary consent.

“We will also not comply with – in fact, we will actively oppose – the creation of any kind of watch list or registry of those of us who happen through chance or nature or even application of science to be blessed – or cursed – with abilities that are different from those of average humans.”

Steve reaches into the pocket of his suit and pulls out a folded square of cloth. He holds it up and shakes it out to reveal that it is a HYDRA flag, bearing a black, tentacled skull on a field of red. “This is what these Accords represent, ladies and gentlemen,” he says. “Every incident that has brought us to this moment, from the events in Washington to those in Symkaria, have all sprung from one point, and that point is HYDRA. And by passing these Accords, this body is playing directly into HYDRA’s hands – first by crippling the best defense you have against HYDRA attacks and second by creating a roster of all those who might stand in opposition to that group – just like HYDRA themselves did with Project Insight.”

With a flourish, Steve drops the flag on the floor and walks out from behind the podium to ostentatiously wipe his shoes on it. “This is what I think of the organization represented by that flag, and of any person who would knowingly take an action that would help to forward that organization’s aims.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the United Nations,” he finishes, “we, the superhumans of the world, stand here before you united against these Accords. And if you choose to try to force them on us, then we invite you to step up and fight off the next HYDRA takeover or alien attack yourselves. Because you’ve all done _so well_ at it so far.”

There’s a long silence when he’s finished speaking, and then all hell breaks loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the Banned Together Bingo 2020 square "flag desecration".


	7. Chapter 7

**September 2014**

**Vienna, Austria**

The shouting is so intense that the banging of the chair’s gavel goes totally unheard under the sound of voices yelling in all the languages of the world. Steve stands in the midst of the whirlwind, serene and calm, clearly waiting until everyone has gotten it out of their system before he continues. And Darcy knows that there is still a lot to say.

As the babble dies down to the point that the gavel banging can be heard, Steve leans into the microphone. “I’m actually not the only super who wants to speak,” he says. “One of my associates has something to say. I yield the podium to the individual known as Magneto.”

He steps to the side and gestures to the podium; from the crowd of supers, Magneto steps forward. He lifts himself off the ground and floats down to the front of the room, gliding behind the podium and looking around. Then he gets a little bit of a smirk on his face. “You all know who I am,” he says simply. “You call me a villain, but if you pass these Accords, it will simply become easier for the real villains of the world to act with impunity.”

“Hear, hear!” one of the masked mutants yells from the back. “Free passes for the villains while everyone else waits on the UN to vote on whether or not to do anything about it!”

“Not only that,” Magneto adds, “but consider that your forced registration will serve no purpose but to drive other mutants into my arms, as they grow to understand that nonmutants want nothing more than to control us. My so-called villainous reach will only grow longer and my words more powerful.”

Steve nods at Magneto and they trade positions. “You see, folks,” Steve says, “these Accords are not a great idea. And yes, I know that the papers say that only the Avengers will be subject to the Accords, but let’s be honest. You’re creating a list of supers; the only place that leads is either mass conscription or mass incarceration.” He tilts his head just a bit, looking every bit as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “I’m curious as to which of those is the eventual goal. I suppose the answer depends on who, exactly, drafted the legislation.” And his eyes track unerringly to Thaddeus Ross, who is sitting beside the American delegate.

“One final thing,” Steve says then, his gaze sweeping the room. “I’ve said this before, but I’m going to say it again. I know what happens when a government – _any_ government – decides to put people on a registry based on any one facet of their identity: race, religion, what have you. And it would be very good for everyone in this room to remember what happened the last time.” With that, he steps away from the podium.

The delegate from Germany stands up. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says loudly, projecting to be heard over those who are speaking to one another, “You may not remember it, but I do – when New York was attacked, so was Stuttgart. My daughter was there when Captain America and Iron Man appeared out of nowhere to rescue a crowd full of people from the madman called Loki. And I can tell you that if those two men had been forced to wait for approval from this body or any other, my daughter might have died in that crowd. I call for a vote on these Accords right now, and I vote nay.”

There’s another uproar, but Steve and Magneto both ignore it. Nodding to each other, they take the stairs back up to the top. Steve slides into his seat on the other side of James; Magneto returns to his place with his Brotherhood.

There’s a lot more talk, but nobody can really say anything that tops what’s already been said, so after a few more speakers, the chair calls for the vote to approve the Accords. Darcy finds herself gripping James’s hand nervously; if this goes against them, things are going to get very bad indeed. But the votes are tallied electronically and displayed on a board above the chairman’s head; the numbers tick up and up and up and though at first the ayes and the nays are neck and neck, slowly the nays begin to climb faster and then faster still. When the last vote has been cast, fully two-thirds of the votes are nay votes. The Accords have not passed.

There’s a collective sigh of relief from the assembled supers; one of the kids even lets out a whoop. The chairman ends the meeting, and the delegates all stand up, gathering their things and starting to file out. The supers do the same, making their way out into the hall and gathering together to share handshakes and backslaps. Steve is at the receiving end of many of these; some people even hug him.

The Avengers have just gathered to the side of the larger group when, quite suddenly, Darcy comes face to bright red face with Thaddeus Ross. “Whoa,” she says, stepping back from where she’s almost crashed into him. “You’re looking a little stressed there, Ross. Think about your blood pressure.”

He ignores her, shoving past her and getting into Steve’s face. “I will own you, Rogers,” he grinds out. “You and Stark and Banner, too.” He points a finger at Bruce, who’s talking to some mutants across the room. “ _Especially_ Banner. You and your little crew of freak show science experiments are going to belong to me, do you hear me?”

Steve raises one eyebrow. “I hear you,” he says. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to deliver on that threat, but I hear you.”

“Oh, I’ll deliver,” Ross replies. “I will _ruin_ you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Tony says simply.

Ross snarls, but he turns and stalks away. Darcy watches him go, then turns back to Steve and Tony. “Gee,” she says, “I’m sure glad he didn’t know he was on camera.”

“He was on camera?” Spider-Man asks from behind her.

Darcy laughs, reaching back to draw him into the circle of adults, her arm around his skinny shoulders. “Kid, here’s your first PR lesson. Always assume you’re on camera. If you wouldn’t say it at a podium on the steps of City Hall, don’t fuckin’ say it.”

Parker nods. “That… makes a lot of sense, actually. Especially because everybody has cameras now.” As if to punctuate his meaning, there’s a flash from the side; America and the young woman who calls herself Hawkeye are taking a selfie with Magneto, of all people. Tony laughs, moving in that direction.

Darcy shakes her head. “We’re gonna be overrun with kids in the Tower now, aren’t we?”

“They’re like Pokémon,” Tony replies over his shoulder. “I gotta catch ‘em all.” 

~* ~

** October 2014 **

** New York, NY **

J ust because the Accords are defeated, though, doesn’t mean the Avengers are in any way able to get back to business as usual; they are still under Congressional order not to engage in military-style actions, so there is no HYDRA fighting or even world-saving (or city-saving) allowed. Hunting isn’t prohibited, per se, so Darcy keeps her ears to the ground and continues collecting and collating all the intel she could so that when ( _if_ ) the ban is lifted, the fighting can begin again in earnest.

Still, with JARVIS as her backup, the task is all but automated; she only needs to glance over questionable sources maybe once every week or so… otherwise, she is stuck being the Dark Mistress of the Science Labs full time. 

Of course, that is only a full-time job. Jane has new interns – three of them, all postdocs – so Darcy isn’t needed in the labs any more.  O nce she’s put in her forty hours,  she is done for the week. She trains, of course, with James and with Natasha and with the team as a whole, but that only takes up a few hours a day… there’s still a lot of time for Darcy to be bored.  So, for lack of anything better to do, she starts working her way through the library. 

“Whatcha doing?” asks America, leaning over the back of the couch.

“Reading a book,” Darcy replies, eyes never leaving the screen of her StarkPad. “You training today?”

“Yeah, we’re working with Steve.” She pauses, then sighs. “If I was straight, I’d have _such_ a crush on him.”

Darcy laughs, setting her StarkPad aside. “He’s nice to look at, that’s for sure. I have to admit, though, I like James better.”

“Well, that’s reasonable,” America says, laughing as well. “He’s your soulmate.”

“Lucky me,” Darcy replies, grinning. She stands up, turning to look around the room. “Where’s your other half?”

“Oh, Kate’s stuck at home today,” America says with a sigh. “Her dad’s getting divorced again and she’s got to go to a fancy dinner with him and some business guys since her stepmom is obviously out of the picture.”

Darcy shakes her head. She rounds the couch. “C’mon, let’s go down to the gym. I wanna watch you guys train.”

“You should train with us,” America says. “We can always use another adult to teach us tricks.”

“I might,” Darcy says. “Depends on what Steve says; I don’t wanna step on his toes.”

America nods. “I get that. So what were you reading?” she asks as they step into the elevator.

“ _Huckleberry Finn,_ ” Darcy replies. 

America’s brows draw together. “Why?”

“I don’t think I’ve read it before,” Darcy says. “And it’s apparently an important book, so I figured now was as good a time as any, what with all the downtime we’ve got going on.”

“It’s not important,” America scoffs. “It’s just a bunch of slavery apologetics and people using the N word.”

“It’s more than that,” Darcy says. “It’s been banned tons of times since it was published. I read an article that said when it was first published, it was criticized as being trash that was fit only for the slums or something like that.”

“Well it’s not great,” America grumbles.

Darcy shrugs. “It doesn’t have to be great. It’s important enough that there are people who don’t want you to see it. Here’s something I learned working with the Red Room and Department X: If someone in charge doesn’t want you to know about something, it’s a good bet there’s something there you need to know.”

“Like what?” America asks.

“Well, like… like James’s arm,” Darcy says as the elevator disgorges them on the gym level. “They _definitely_ didn’t want us to know how it worked, because if we knew that, we could maybe repair it ourselves, and that would put us a step closer to being able to function outside of Department X if we ever decided to walk away.”

America hums thoughtfully. “So… they were actively preventing you from having important information. But that’s not the same as banning a book for, like, having the N word in it.”

“Isn’t it?” Darcy asks. “Or is it not important for us to understand – or at the very least to know about – the attitudes and thoughts of people who lived before us? You know what they say about people who don’t know their history.”

“Huh.” America considered. “I’ll have to think about that.”

“You do that,” Darcy says. She stops walking, grabs the gym door, and pulls it open. “But for now, let’s focus on training.”

~*~

“I’m getting philosophical in my old age,” Darcy says to James that night, stretched out on the bed in a pair of short shorts and a tank top.

“You’re barely twenty-six,” James replies. “Try again.”

Darcy laughs. “I had a conversation with America today – and I was right, by the way, about how we’re having kids all over the Tower all of a sudden, wasn’t I?”

“You were right.” James strips out of his day clothes and pulls on a clean pair of boxer briefs. “So what did you wax philosophical with America about?”

“Banned books,” Darcy explains as he climbs into the bed beside her. “I found a list of the 100 most challenged books in the US and I’m reading them all.”

“What are you reading right now?”

“ _Huckleberry Finn,_ ” Darcy tells him. “I don’t think I’ve ever read it before.”

“I read it when it first came out,” James replies.

“Liar!” Darcy exclaims, laughing. “You weren’t even born when it came out.”

He grins, leaning over to kiss her. “I wondered if you’d catch that.”

“You’ve got to be more sly than that,” Darcy tells him. “You got me that time with the _Titanic,_ but I’m wise to your ways now.”

James chortles. “That was pretty funny, though.”

“For you,” she grumbles, but she rolls over to sit on his thighs, grinning down at him. “How are things going down in R&D? Tell me all about your day, honey.”

James laughs, tickling her ribs gently. “Tony dragged me up to the lab today to work with him and Peter on the web fluid.”

“Oh, jeez,” Darcy groans. “Don’t let them stick you to anything.”

“Oh, believe me, I put my foot down when they started aiming the thing at me. I’m willing to try and rip it apart with my arm, but they’re not gluing me to a damn wall. Or, with my luck, the fuckin’ ceiling.”

He wraps his arms around her ribs and tugs gently; she goes easily, sprawling across him and sliding her arms up to rest alongside his trunk. “Love you, Chefchen,” she murmurs. “Feel like I haven’t said that much recently.”

“We’ve both been busy,” he admits. “And things get lost in the humdrum of the day-to-day. But I love you, too, кукла.”

“We always say it when we’re fighting,” Darcy says. “I mean, when we go out to fight. I always make sure I say it to you, in case one of us doesn’t make it back. But it’s funny how I forget when we’re just taking the elevator to different floors.” She pauses. “And I don’t mean the ha-ha kind of funny, either.”

“I know what you mean.” His right hand slides slowly up and down her back. “Never thought we’d have a humdrum day-to-day,” he admits, pressing a kiss to her head. “I thought we’d just always be fighting.”

“We had a little bit of one in New Mexico,” Darcy points out. “Of course at that point it was so novel I don’t think we knew what to do with it.”

“I definitely didn’t,” James agrees. “I was too busy being free and being with you that I never saw it as humdrum.”

“Being free,” Darcy hums. “Yeah. Yeah, there’s something about that.” She takes a slow breath. “I think the closest I ever felt to that freedom was when we were training in Germany. Remember? When we were based out of Dresden?”

“I remember,” James replies. “And they gave us free rein to roam as long as we didn’t take out our trackers.”

Darcy nods, then grins. “That was our newlywed phase.”

James laughs. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”

She lifts her head up and kisses him, slowly and with intent. “Hey, Chefchen,” she says, “wanna relive the glory days?”

He rolls her over, growling low in his throat. “I’ll show  _you_ glory days,” he says, and then they don’t talk much any more for awhile.

~*~

It’s just a few days after that when Thaddeus Ross decides it’s time to make yet another unannounced visit to Avengers Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Banned Together Bingo 2020 prompt "slumdweller content".


	8. Chapter 8

** October 2014 **

** New York, NY **

This time, when Darcy comes down to greet him in the lobby, she sighs and shakes her head. “I’m tired, Ross,” she says. “What the hell do you want?”

“I want the Hulk,” Ross says, and triumphantly thrusts a paper at her. “And this is my warrant to get him.”

_ ::JARVIS, please advise Bruce to retreat to James’s and my apartment until this asshole’s gone,::  _ Darcy says through her silent connection, and she gets JARVIS’s immediate assent. Then she takes the paper and looks it over. “Interesting,” she says to Ross. “Well, come on upstairs, then.”

Smug as anything, Ross follows her into the elevator. “Voice print, Darcy Lewis,” she says unnecessarily. “JARVIS, floor sixty-five please. And ask the adults to join us, if you would.”

Ross catches this, as she meant for him to. “Adults?” he demands. “You have children here?”

She gives him a serene smile and says nothing. He goes red in the face, and she blinks at him. “You  _ really  _ need to talk to your doctor about your blood pressure,” she says sincerely. “That can’t be healthy.”

“What’s not healthy is you _freaks –_ ”

She waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it from you before, Ross,” she says. The elevator stops and she steps out. “Come on.” 

Outside the conference room, where Steve is already waiting, Darcy turns to Ross. “Just out of curiosity, do you think you’re the first person to call us names?”

He blinks at her. “What?”

“You persist in calling us freaks every time you see us. Do you think you’re the first person to call us something bad? We hear that _all the time_. Granted, it’s usually coming at us from HYDRA soldiers and scientists, but really, we get name-called more than a red-headed third-grader. Is it because you think you’re the first person to say that? You think we’ll get our feelings hurt?” She smirks at him. “Joke’s on you, Ross; I don’t have any feelings to hurt.” She steps back and waves at the conference room door. “Please. Age before beauty.” His face goes red again, and she smirks. “Sorry. Hurt your feelings?”

As he enters the conference room, the elevator down the hall opens again. James and Tony spill out, followed by Peter. Darcy shakes her head. “No,” she says, meeting them halfway up the hall.

“Aw, c’mon,” Tony wheedles. “I’m just gonna say he’s – ”

“No. I don’t care what you’re ‘just gonna say’. You want the kid on Ross’s radar?”

“I can handle myself,” Peter says, but he doesn’t look so sure.

“No,” Darcy says, pointing back toward the elevators. “Let us handle this one.”

Nodding and suddenly looking a little grateful, Peter turns and trots back to the elevators. When Clint, Thor, and Natasha come out, Peter goes in. Then Darcy leads the little group  down the hall to the conference room, where Steve is sitting back in his chair and looking amused at Ross’s attempt to intimidate him.

“Okay, we’re all here,” Darcy says. “Now, what’s this about?” she asks, holding up the paper Ross thrust at her downstairs.

“That’s an order for the Hulk to report at Fort McWarren on Monday morning.”

“Report for…?” Steve prompts.

“Duty,” Ross says, and the Avengers all laugh.

“I don’t think you can make someone report for duty who’s not in the military,” Clint says.

“It’s a conscription notice,” Ross says, taking the paper and shoving it toward Steve, who does not take it.

“Oh, a _conscription_ notice,” Natasha says lightly. “Well, won’t the general public be interested to know that the draft is being reinstated.”

“What is a draft?” Thor asks, and Tony takes a moment to explain the military draft to him before saying, “And Bruce won’t be turning up on Monday, so you can forget it, Ross.”

Darcy shakes her head. “I’ve really had enough of this idiot,” she says to James. “JARVIS, can you please roll that video I gave you after Vienna?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then the holo-screen at the end of the room flickers on. The person who appears to be holding the camera is jostled backward, and suddenly Ross comes into focus, getting into Steve’s face and threatening to own all the Avengers, especially Bruce. 

Ross goes pale. “How did you get that?” he demands. “None of you had cameras!”

“Shows what you know,” Darcy replies. “I’ve been hanging onto this, but I’m getting really sick of you. I think it’s time for the general public to know that their Secretary of State has a bug up his butt about supers that leaves him literally unhinged.” She points at the screen. “JARVIS, can you add to this the footage of the last five or so minutes of this meeting?”

JARVIS complies, and Ross is suddenly staring at  video of  himself waving around a piece of paper and identifying it as a conscription notice. He turns on Darcy. “This is top secret. You can’t release that footage.”

“Oh, well, you should’ve said that sooner,” Darcy says. “I’m afraid it’s already been released. I work fast.” She smirks. There’s a long moment of silence before Darcy says, “I’m sure I’ll apologize on whatever news show I appear on tomorrow. But really, you can’t fault me for not knowing. It’s your own fault for not saying so at the beginning of the meeting.”

Ross splutters before trying to regroup. “This is a lawful order – ”

“No, it’s not,” Steve interrupts him. “And you know it. What judge did you even get to sign it?” He pauses, then waves a hand, plucking. “Don’t worry; it doesn’t matter. Tony’s already sitting over there contacting his lawyers. That order will be invalidated by the end of the day.”

“So will you,” James mutters, and the Avengers all laugh softly. 

“Look, I’ve tried to be nice about this,” Darcy says, “but somehow it always ends up being me that has to deal with you, and I’m plain old sick of having to deal with you. I’m done, Ross. No more nice Avengers.”

“I am the Secretary of State – ” Ross tries, but Thor waves a hand.

“I am a Prince of Asgard,” he says. “Your title means nothing here. Neither does mine. In this room, we are all but men and women who work ostensibly in the service of the people of this world.” He tilts his head slightly. “I wonder, though, Ross, who it is that you really work for.”

“Excuse me?” Ross demands.

“Oh, you heard me,” Thor replies. “I asked who you work for. Because it is clear to me through your actions that you do not work in the service of the people. So who do you serve, Ross? Who is your master?”

“Are you trying to suggest that I’m some kind of traitor?” Ross demands.

“Don’t be stupid,” Natasha says. “It’s not a good look for you.” She shakes her head. “You’re not working in service to the people; you’re working in service of yourself, aren’t you? Everything you’ve done since before Bruce became the Hulk has been about your own personal hobby horse. You want supersoldiers you can control and order around, and you’ll try anything you can think of to get them.”

“You’d think people would have learned by now that supersoldiers don’t take orders well,” Tony comments, and everyone laughs again even as Steve goes a little pink around the edges.

“It doesn’t matter,” Darcy says. “By Monday I’m betting you won’t be the Secretary of State any more. You serve at the pleasure of the President, don’t you? Ellis won’t be too happy about seeing this video.”

As if on cue, Ross’s cell phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, checks the caller ID, and goes a little pale. When he answers, he simply says “Yes, sir.” After a minute, he then says, “Right away, sir.” Then he hangs up, and he looks at Darcy. “Put it on the television for all I care,” he says. “You will pay for this.”

Darcy smiles sweetly. “Good luck.”

~*~

Steve and Tony do  _GMA_ together the next morning. Darcy watches on the big screen in the lab, Jane and one of the postdocs sitting on the comfy couch beside her. “You didn’t want to go?” Jane asks Darcy.

“Hell no,” Darcy replies. “I hate doing TV.”

“But you’re so good at it.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to do it. All those people staring at you? And then the cameras, and knowing there’s millions of people judging your hair over their breakfast cereal? No, thanks.” Darcy shakes her head vehemently. “Plus, I prefer to be less recognizable.”

“That’s out the window,” Jane says wryly. “After being on CSPAN with Congress and then the news after Vienna…”

“Yeah, I’m really hoping that dies down quickly,” Darcy says, nodding. “The less people who know what I look like, the happier I am.”

“Might as well forget it,” says the postdoc – Lisa – as a picture of all the Avengers is flashed on the screen. It’s from Vienna, so of course none of them are wearing suits or masks. And there’s Darcy, standing right in the middle between James and Steve. 

Darcy sighs. “May as well start posting selfies, at this rate.”

“Maybe you should,” Lisa says.

Darcy goes sniper-still, then turns and leans forward, looking around Jane at Lisa. “Sorry, run that by me again?”

Lisa chews her lip, then says, “People think you’re scary.”

“They’re meant to,” Darcy replies. “I _am_ scary.”

“Yeah, but maybe they shouldn’t. If… I mean… if you want the Avengers to be more widely accepted, you have to get people to like you. And they don’t like people who are scary.”

“I’m supposed to be able to go undercover,” Darcy says. “I don’t need people knowing what I look like.”

“When’s the last time you went undercover?” Jane asks reasonably. “In fact, the last time anybody went undercover, it was Natasha, and she wore one of Tony’s face meshes.”

Darcy sits back for a second, then shifts on the couch so she’s facing Jane and Lisa. “So I should, what, just throw myself out there?”

“I wouldn’t say _throw_ ,” Lisa says. “But I mean… you might think about, like, making an Instagram or something.”

“An Instagram,” Darcy repeats.

Lisa shrugs. “It’d humanize you.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at Lisa. “How much money do you have riding on this?”

“None, I swear,” Lisa laughs. “But I may have had a conversation with some friends the other day about what kind of things the Avengers would read if they had a book club.”

“Oh?” Darcy asks, her brows arching. “And what did you conclude?”

“That we don’t actually know any of you well enough to say for sure what you’d read, but that we were probably stereotyping Steve at military history.”

“Definitely,” Jane says. “He likes detective novels.”

“Yeah,” Darcy agrees. “James reads science fiction and horror.”

“What do you read?” Lisa asks.

Darcy explains about her banned books reading project, and Lisa says, “See? That would be a perfect thing to post on your Instagram about. You could post book covers and say ‘This is what I’m reading today’ and then if it’s good you can say so. And I bet other people would read the stuff you read, too, just so they could say they did.”

“That sounds like an audience again,” Darcy says, frowning.

“A little bit, but it’s a controlled audience. You don’t have to look at them, you don’t even have to interact with them. You just post pictures and let them go wild.”

“Hm,” Darcy says. “I’ll think about it.”

“Talk to PR,” Jane says, patting her shoulder. “They’ll give you the pros and cons. I’m sure they’ve been salivating for the chance to talk to an Avenger who’ll actually listen.”

“As opposed to the ones who just nod and smile and then do whatever they’re going to do anyway?” Darcy asks, waving a hand at the TV screen, where Steve has just been asked about his soulmate.

“Clint’s outside the window, up against the glass,” Jane points out. “Look, right there beside Robin, wearing a blue cap.”

“Oh my God,” Darcy groans, focusing on the person in question and realizing that it is in fact Clint Barton, face plastered to the studio’s glass wall. “That idiot.”

~*~

PR is in fact salivating for an Avenger who will listen, and Darcy listens very carefully as a young man called Patrick helps her set up an Instagram account and then puts in a request to have her verified. “Once you get the check mark,” he says, “then you start posting. People don’t know your face well enough yet to believe a selfie.”

“I probably won’t post many selfies,” Darcy says. 

“That’s okay,” Patrick says. “You don’t have to. You can post whatever you want.”

So Darcy waits. It takes a day or so to get the check mark, but once she has it, she posts a screenshot of the cover of her e-book copy of  _Huckleberry Finn._ She captions it  _I’m reading banned books._ And she waits to see what will happen.

By the end of the day, she has 300,000 followers and thousands of commenters telling her that they either enjoyed or hated the book, or that they’re going to read it now because she is.

She tells Jane to tell Lisa she was right.

~*~

“No pictures of your boobs.”

Darcy, who has been staring out the window at the city, turns slowly and gives James a blank look. “Sorry, what?”

He crosses the room, grinning, and wraps his arms around her from behind. “No posting pictures of your boobs on Instagram.”

“Why in the frilly, lacy hell would I post pictures of my boobs on Instagram?” Darcy demands.

He shrugs. “I don’t know, I thought that was a thing people did.”

“Well if I did choose to post pictures of my boobs on Instagram, which I am not, but if I chose to do so, they’re _my_ boobs and I’ll post them if I want to.”

James laughs. “Okay, okay, you’re right. How about this:  _Please_ don’t post your boobs on Instagram. I like them being just for me.”

She reaches up and ruffles his hair. “You idiot.”

He grins, leaning in to kiss the side of her neck. “I talked to Patrick about getting one of those Instagrams for me, too. And don’t worry; I won’t post pictures of my dick.”

“If you did, they’d kick you off it,” she replies, laughing. “Dumbass.”

“Yeah, but I’m your dumbass.”

“For now,” Darcy replies. “I may change my mind tomorrow.”

He nips at the side of her neck, making her squeak. “You won’t.”

She laughs again, turning in his arms to wrap hers around his neck. “ You’re right; I won’t.”  She kisses him fondly. “Nobody else could be my Chefchen, you know.”

“Nobody else could be my кукла,” 

“You know, it’s funny,” she says, drawing him to the sofa so they can sit and cuddle, “I used to wonder why you called me кукла, since Russian endearments are more like птичка or зайка. But of course now I know. It’s because it’s not a Russian endearment at all.”

He laughs. “Would you like me to call you one of those things? Little birdie, or bunny? Maybe  пчёлка , and you could be my little bee.”

“No,” she says firmly. “No, I would not.”

He drops a kiss on her temple. “Then my кукла you will stay.”

“You’re damn right,” she replies. “Mein Liebling.”

He recoils. “Okay, no.”

She smirks up at him. “You don’t want to be my favorite?”

“No,” he says, just as firmly as she did. “No, I want to be your Chefchen always.”

“And so you shall,” she says softly, leaning up to kiss his lips. “Forever and always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the Banned Together Bingo 2020 prompt "boob discussion".


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Banned Together Bingo 2020 prompt "crime in title".

** October 2014 **

**New York, NY**

“So, Ross is fired,” Tony says as Darcy and James join the group for breakfast. “Congratulations.”

“Oh, that’s excellent news to start the morning,” Darcy says. “Please tell me he’s in total disgrace.”

“Well after the video and then us on _GMA_ yesterday, there’s not really much else he could be,” Tony says, and Steve nods as he brings a platter of bacon in from the kitchen. 

“If I say so myself, the interview went really well,” Steve agrees.

“I thought so,” Wanda says, picking up the bacon before her brother can get to it and sending it around the table in the other direction just to mess with him. “You both seemed very sincere and…” she pauses, muttering to herself in Sokovian for a second before finishing, “...commanding.”

Steve goes a little pink at the compliment; Clint chortles. “Commanding. I like that. I know you meant Steve, though, and not Tony.”

There’s general laughter at Tony’s squawk of indignation, and then Wanda says, with an apologetic glance at Tony, “It’s not really your strong suit to be a commander. But you seemed very much a leader of your group. Very… authoritive? Is this a word?”

“Authoritative,” Natasha says gently.

“Yes, that,” Wanda says, pointing a finger at Natasha. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

There’s a moment of quiet around the table as everyone gets their food in order and starts eating, and then Pietro speaks. “Wanda and I have been talking about what we want to do, now that we’re… free.”

“What have you decided?” Steve asks, putting his fork down to focus on the young man.

“I want to go to the Xavier School,” Pietro says. “I want to finish school and learn how to be a mutant.”

Steve nods. “We can arrange that. I assume you’ve already spoken with Professor Xavier?”

“Yes. He says I can come whenever I like.”

“Whenever you want to go, we’ll take you,” Steve agrees. Then his eyes slide to Wanda, who’s staring at her plate. “Wanda?”

“I… I…” She pauses, then takes a deep breath and looks up at him. “I… Sorry. This is very difficult. We’ve never been separated, you see.” She pauses again, then gives him a hopeful expression. “I want to stay here,” she says. “I want to be an Avenger.”

“If you’re sure that’s what you want, there’s space for you on the team,” Steve agrees immediately.

“Really?” she asks, sounding surprised and awed.

He nods firmly. “Really. And Pietro, if you decide to come back, there’s space for you, too.”

Pietro shakes his head. “I don’t think I would be very useful. All I do is run fast. But Wanda, with all she can do, would be an amazing Avenger.”

“I fully agree that she’ll be amazing,” Clint says. “I think you’re wrong about not being useful, but it’s about you and what you want for your life.”

Pietro nods. “I want my schooling,” he says after a moment. “That, to me, is the important thing. I want… maybe to go to college, if I can.”

“I’ve never cared about school,” Wanda interjects, making a face. “And here, I can… I can work with you to make sure HYDRA never does to anyone else what they did to us.”

There are understanding nods all around the table. Everyone gets that. “I understand completely,” Darcy tells her firmly. “And once we’re out from under this godforsaken Congressional order, we’ll be back to HYDRA hunting. In the meantime, I can teach you about sorting intelligence information, if you want.”

“I would very much like that,” Wanda says, and then she goes back to her food.

~*~

Two days later, Steve and Clint drive Pietro upstate in one of Tony’s cars. To take Wanda’s mind off things, Darcy brings her into the office and sits her down for her first lesson in intelligence work. Wanda doesn’t take to it well, and by noon she’s given it up. “I can’t do it,” she says. “Not that I _can’t_ , you see, but I can’t take it, just sitting here and reading reports and how do you even _get this_? No, no, I need to go to the gym.”

Laughing, Darcy shuts down the computer. “Not everyone is suited to this kind of work,” she admits. “It’s very fiddly stuff. I can see why you wouldn’t want to do it.”

“How do you even manage it?” Wanda wails. “It’s so _boring!_ ”

Darcy grins. “Well now that you’re one of us, you’ll need to know anyway. I have a direct connection to JARVIS and he and I work in tandem on this stuff.”

Wanda tilts her head. “What do you mean, a direct connection to JARVIS?”

“Don’t freak out,” Darcy says, and she pops her prosthetic out to explain it to Wanda.

Predictably, Wanda freaks out. “Oh my God!” she exclaims. “They put a  _computer_ inside your  _head?!_ That’s  _horrible!_ ”

“Relax, relax,” Darcy says, returning her eye back to its socket. “It was a long time ago.”

“Oh my God,” Wanda moans. “No wonder you and James were so concerned about what they might have done to us while they had us.”

“Exactly,” Darcy says, growing serious. “Nobody knows better than us what kinds of things HYDRA likes to do to the people it decides are worthy of… volunteering.”

Wanda shudders. Darcy reaches over and pats her hand. “Once we get this Congressional thing out of the way, we’re going to be back on the job, don’t worry.” 

Wanda nods, and her expression is fierce. “And when we are, they will learn to fear the witch they created.”

Darcy tilts her head. “That’s what we should call you. Your energy is all red, so we could call you Scarlet Witch.”

“Scarlet Witch,” Wanda murmurs, then smiles. “Yes, I like that.”

“Excellent!” Darcy says, grinning. “Well, Scarlet Witch, how do you feel about going and getting a sandwich and some coffee with the Snow Maiden?”

“I should like that very much,” Wanda says.

And that is how they come to be sitting in a sandwich shop  four blocks from the Tower when the shit hits the fan.

Darcy is just finishing her sandwich when the television just above Wanda’s head turns to the news, and she blinks at the screen. “The fuck?”

Wanda leans, turning, and starts in surprise. “Is that the Tower?”

“Is that _Ross?_ ”

It certainly appears to be; there’s a man in a military-style uniform standing on the front steps of the tower. He’s surrounded by other men with uniforms and guns and he’s shouting into a megaphone. His words are unintelligible through the low volume on the screen, but it doesn’t matter what he’s saying. What matters is the four military-style vehicles pulled up on the plaza in front of the building and the chyron running across the bottom of the screen that reads  _Military attack on Avengers Tower has Bruce Banner as target._

Darcy gets to her feet, dropping two twenties on the table. “Let’s go,” she says.

~*~

When they reach the Tower they find it surrounded.  _::JARVIS, what’s the situation inside?::_ she asks.

_ ::Dr. Banner is experiencing a high amount of stress,::  _ JARVIS replies,  _ ::but he is maintaining his equilibrium for right now. Captain Rogers and Mr. Barton are still upstate with young Mr. Maximoff. Thor and Mr. Stark are on the balcony with Ms. Romanoff discussing ideas and plans.:: _

_ ::Thank you.::  _ Darcy pulls Wanda to one side, out of the way, and pulls out her cell phone. Putting it on speaker, she calls Natasha’s phone. “Hey, guys,” she says.

“Where are you?” Natasha asks.

“Across the street in front of the little tea shop where Steve likes to sit and draw,” Darcy reports. “Wanda’s with me.”

“What are we looking at down there?” Tony wants to know.

“There are four Jeeps on the plaza,” Wanda says. “That’s going to leave marks on the marble for sure.”

Tony laughs. “It’s okay, kid, we’ll get it cleaned. I can see everyone around the Tower, but what’s the situation offsite?”

“There doesn’t appear to be anyone across the streets or anything. In fact, even the smaller parts of the complex are business as usual. He’s only around the main Tower and he’s yelling about the Hulk needing to be contained.”

“Has he got an audience?”

Darcy looks around. “Mostly tourists,” she reports. 

“What’s he doing?” Wanda says suddenly.

Darcy looks up and nearly drops her phone. “Tony, I hope you cleared out the lobby.”

“Absolutely, and the Tower’s on lockdown, why?”

“Because your insurance company is about to be fielding a property damage claim. He’s coming in, Jeep and all.”

For Ross had just climbed into one of the Jeeps, started it up, and was turning it toward the glass front of the lobby.

“He can’t do that! He might hurt people!” Wanda exclaims.

“Tony’s cleared the lobby,” Darcy assures her.

“No!” Wanda says. “I can handle this!” And just before the Jeep makes contact with the door, it starts glowing red and lifts just slightly off the ground.

Someone screams. Wanda strains just a little bit, drawing the Jeep backward and away from the doors. Its engine guns, and Darcy stands up. “How long can you hold him?”

“As long as I need to.” 

Darcy strolls across the street and up the plaza steps. The soldiers – probably mercenaries – standing around with guns don’t even try to stop her as she approaches the driver’s side of the Jeep. She clearly hears one of them mutter about not being paid enough for this.

At the door, Darcy stops. “Get out, Ross,” she says. “It’s over. You’re not getting him.”

“I’ll have him! He’s _mine!_ ” Ross snarls.

“Ross, the cops are going to be here soon and they’re going to take you into custody. It’s over. Banner isn’t yours, and you’re never going to own him.”

“Who’s going to stop me? You?” Ross slams the door open, nearly catching her in the face, and bails out of it, rolling across the plaza and coming up with a gun in his hands.

Darcy raises her hands slowly. “Just relax, Ross,” she says. “You don’t wanna do this right now. There’s people all over the place out here. You wanna shoot a tourist?”

“I want to shoot you, you smart-mouthed little bitch,” Ross replies, his voice thick with rage. “You’re not going to stop me from getting what I want.”

“Well, at this point, I don’t really have to,” Darcy says sensibly. She opens her mouth to say something else, but she’s interrupted by a voice from the doors. 

“Put your gun down,” Bruce Banner says, “and I’ll come quietly.”

Ross falters, his head nearly spinning as he turns to see Bruce standing there, and it gives Darcy the opening she needs. She whips her own gun out and sights on Ross. “Put it down, Ross,” she demands. 

“Darcy, don’t,” Bruce begins, but Darcy shakes her head sharply once and he subsides.

“You’re not taking him, Ross,” she says.

“I don’t have to take him,” Ross says. “I’m just going to end him.”

Ross raises his gun and points it at Bruce.

A single gunshot echoes across the plaza, and tourists run screaming in all directions.

~*~

** December 2014 **

** Washington, DC **

“Ms. Lewis, if you will please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that you will answer all questions asked of you today truthfully and fully to the best of your knowledge?”

“To the extent that I can be legally compelled to, yes,” Darcy replies, and Senator Johnson glares at her. She shrugs.

McCain speaks. “We’d like you to tell us exactly what happened on the day you shot Thaddeus Ross.”

“I was out in the city having lunch with one of my colleagues,” Darcy says, “when we saw on the news that Thaddeus Ross had decided to attack the Tower with a small squadron of armed men. We came back to the Tower to see what we could do to deescalate the situation before someone got hurt. Unfortunately, Mr. Ross was… well, frankly, the only word I can think of to use is ‘unhinged,’ and our attempts to stop him were unsuccessful.”

“And then he pulled a gun on you,” Heitkamp supplies.

Darcy nods. “And then he pulled a gun on me. And Bruce Banner, bless him, tried to come out and give himself up, but that wasn’t happening.”

“Why not?” Paul asks. “It wasn’t your business.”

“It very much was and is my business,” Darcy replies. “Aside from the fact that Dr. Banner is my friend, I wouldn’t send any innocent person into the clutches of what Ross had planned for him. But then, you’ve all seen the reports of his facility in Wyoming, right? What he had set up there? A medical torture suite and a Hulk-proof cell?”

There’s a moment of silence while the senators all look over the papers in front of them; Darcy knows damn good and well that they’ve all seen those reports because Steve provided them during his own testimony that very morning. Darcy nods. “You’ve seen them, then; good.” She folds her hands. “So Dr. Banner tried to defuse things and failed; that’s when I took advantage of Ross’s distraction.”

“Why were you carrying a weapon?” Johnson demands. “You Avengers are under orders – ”

“Not to engage in military-style operations,” Darcy replies, nodding. “I’m not forbidden to carry my licensed personal firearm.”

“So you just… carry a gun. Everywhere.”

Darcy tilts her head slightly. “Are you unfamiliar with this concept, Senator? I thought a bunch of your constituents were big into open carry.”

Johnson sputters, but there’s nothing else he can say to that.

“So when you ‘took advantage of Ross’s distraction,’” Ayotte begins, and Darcy nods.

“That’s when I shot him,” she says.

“Are you aware that former Secretary Ross may never walk again?” Ayotte demands.

“I could’ve made it so he’d never breathe again,” Darcy replies flatly. “He’s lucky all I did was shoot his knee out. Center mass is a _way_ easier target.”

This comment causes a predictable uproar, but Darcy sits through it with equanimity. She also bears the repeated questioning about her version of events for about thirty minutes before finally saying, “Look, I don’t know how many more times you expect me to answer the same questions over and over, but could we move on from that and get to the real reason we’re here? It’s time for the SRA to be scrapped, and this incident just proves it. The whole thing was Ross’s hobbyhorse from beginning to end, and the only reason it happened is because he’s so obsessed with supers, and specifically with Bruce Banner, that he’s willing to risk the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians by attacking a civilian building in the middle of New York City – with, I might add, a paramilitary force of armed men. Because  _ other people _ are allowed to do military-style actions, just not the supers. Because… reasons, I guess.”

There’s not much else they can really say to her after that.

~*~

In their hotel room that evening, Darcy sits on the couch and leans back against James, who rubs her shoulders warmly. “You did great up there today,” he tells her. “I liked how you made your point about other people being able to do military-style actions but not us.”

“I think it actually worked,” Darcy replies. “We won’t know until tomorrow when they vote on it, but… I don’t know, I feel like I got my point across.”

“They said there was over a million people at the march today.”

“Awesome. How did Steve’s speech go?”

“It was great. Very moving. The crowd loved it.”

“I hate that I had to miss it.” Darcy grumps a little bit, mad that her Senate testimony kept her away from the anti-SRA march that was held while she was testifying. The others had all gone, mostly because she told them to; she didn’t need the moral support just to tell those people what she thought. She had that well under control. So the rest of the Avengers went to the march, joining several members of Magneto’s Brotherhood as well as a bunch of individual supers and Sue and Johnny Storm. 

“Hopefully there won’t have to be a next time, but if there is, we’ll make sure you’re there,” James assures her. He leans down to kiss the side of her neck. “You ready for bed?”

“Yeah,” Darcy says, sitting up and stretching. “I’m tired.”

James stands, taking her hand, and pulls her to her feet. “Let’s get some sleep, then,” he says.

~*~ 

They oversleep the next morning, and are awakened by the ringing of the bedside phone.

It’s Tony.

“Get dressed and get over here to the suite,” he says. “The voting’s started.”

\--FIN--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set  
>  myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the  
> opened door,--the lady, or the tiger?_
> 
> \---
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's come along with me on this crazy ride. I know I made you all wait five years between halves, but I appreciate that you were still here when these two came back. 
> 
> Special thanks also go to secondalto and citymusings, without whom I would never have restarted this series and without whom it would not be _nearly_ what it is. All my love. <3


End file.
